ONLY three in five Queensland doctors are washing their hands properly before treating patients — the lowest rate in the nation, a report into hygiene standards in Australian hospitals has found.
The report — published in the Medical Journal of Australia — analysed hand washing practices at 82 hospitals across the country, to see whether doctors and nurses were being hygienic before they touched a patient.
They found medical staff were consistently below the national threshold, with the diligence of nurses making up for poor practice by doctors.
Almost 79 per cent of nurses were compliant, compared to 61 per cent of doctors, in Queensland.
The findings have driven a call for a new reminder program targeted at doctors, to remind them to wash their hands before they touch a patient.
“Most hospitals and medical staff are performing below the national hand hygiene compliance threshold,’’ authors Syed Azim and Mary-Louise McLaws from the University of New South Wales said.
“We must shift our focus to providing medical staff with immediate feedback and move to improving a single hand hygiene indication at a time, starting with before touching a patient.
“We believe that before touching a patient is an appropriate moment on which to focus a hand hygiene behaviour change program as it is consistent with patient safety and the maxim ‘first do no harm’.’’
AMA Queensland president-elect Dr Shaun Rudd said good hygiene was essential for medical practitioners.
“One of the easiest ways to prevent infection spreading is simple hand washing,’’ Dr Rudd said.
“I don’t think anyone questions that is the right thing to do, so we just need to continue our vigilance and reminders to get health professionals to wash their hands before they see patients and after.’’
The study also looked at whether poor hand washing procedures were contributing to the rates of staph bacteria infections in hospitals, but found the causal link between the two was weak.
Source: News.com.au