Camden New Journal - Letters: Toilets

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 11 October 2007

Fight against super-bugs could start in the toilets

• IF University College London, like most hospitals, is losing the fight against “super-bugs” it is partly due to the bad design of toilets, washbasins, showers and door handles (Hospital’s dirty secrets revealed, September 20).
UCL’s showers and toilets are old-fashioned with taps and lift-up lids on toilets, and are very difficult to clean and keep hygienic.
This is a new building and should have had electronically controlled (by hand-waving) faucets and flushes.
Heathrow airport and many modern buildings have these devices. These remove the hand-operated taps and levers making things much cleaner.
Door handles could be copper, which is a bacteriacide – and would kill germs on them.
I was a patient for six days and for two other, separate, days in March of this year and in May and I observed the cleaning and design problems.
The wards were cleaned very regularly – little dust is seen.
I watched the cleaning of taps and washbasins, though, and they were usually only washed with water.
The ward I was in was very big but broken into intimate four-bed areas with a sink and one shower and toilet room.
The beds were changed every day and also the towels and nightdresses. But there was nowhere to hang towels, either in the wards or in the shower rooms, for them to be kept clean for the user.
On one occasion I was examined by a young doctor when I had infected stitches in my navel.
He was going to examine me with bare hands until I asked him to use gloves.
I am too old to mince my words and he did comply, but this should never have happened.
I cannot comment on the state of the operating theatres but they seemed extremely efficient.
This hospital is a huge “factory” with massive numbers of people moving in and out.
The tap and handle situation is lunatic. Perhaps things could be changed slowly to electronic controls.
SUSAN DRAKE
Address supplied

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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