- Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the importance of hand hygiene has been observed.
- Within the office it is essential to carry out this action constantly due to the flow of people.
- Other hygienic measures are bathing and changing clean clothes daily; avoid sharing personal items, such as eating or drinking utensils, toothbrushes, and towels; and maintain a clean environment.
Handwashing with soap and water and hygiene through the friction of 70 percent alcohol-based gel has made it possible to reduce diarrhea care by 40 percent. While respiratory diseases have a decrease of 21 percent, reported the coordinator of IMSS Nursing Programs, Martha Raquel Pulido Gómez.
He also stressed that by avoiding both conditions with an adequate hand hygiene technique, it is possible reduce absenteeism by up to 57 percent.
Lic. Pulido Gómez recalled that as of December 2021, the Institute promotes, both in rights and in workers, various actions to encourage hand hygienethrough a multimodal strategy aligned to five moments established by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Cleaning inside the office
Similarly, he explained that it is essential to hand hygiene before touching the patient, before performing an aseptic task, of being at risk of exposure to body fluids or blood; after touching the patient, and after contact with the patient’s environment (personal objects, sheets, bed and/or table where he eats).
Regarding the seven calls to action of the institutional campaign, they are addressed to health workers, to place a special emphasis on the hand hygiene in professionals who are mentors at points of medical care; managers who guarantee hand hygiene for all; policy managers, to secure the necessary supplies; patients and relatives; vaccinators and, it is emphasized that it is everyone’s task, to make clean hands a habit that protects, all this in units and hospitals of the three levels of care.
The coordinator of IMSS Nursing Programs pointed out that the WHO multimodal strategy is carried out in Social Security to promote the two techniques for hand hygiene, one of which is washing with soap and water, which should last for 40 to 60 seconds, and friction with a 70 percent alcohol-based solution for a period of 30 to 40 seconds.
He indicated that Social Security has a platform where compliance with hand hygiene techniques among its personnel is recorded month after month, “by April 2022, 80.7 percent are in the area of compliance, either washing with water and soap or friction with alcohol gel”.
He affirmed that there are lessons learned with the arrival of COVID-19 inside and outside the Institute, “the pandemic did not come to teach us to be nurses, but to highlight what we have done all our lives and that hand hygiene has He has been with us for many years, although now he highlights that with an adequate technique we can avoid a contagion or an outbreak”.
The importance of proper hygiene is because every day you have contact with millions of germs and viruses found in the environment. Good habits help to care for and value the body, and in the case of food preparation, to prevent diseases such as hepatitis, cholera, diarrhoea, pneumonia and skin infections, among others.
In addition to hand hygiene, other hygienic measures are bathing and changing clean clothes daily; avoid sharing personal items, such as eating or drinking utensils, toothbrushes, and towels; and maintain a clean environment.
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