So…I’ve been missing in action for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been on maternity leave! Yes, I had a bouncing baby boy last week Wednesday☺️.
I’m currently basking in the glow of motherhood, albeit a little (well actually, A LOT) sleep deprived, but a wonderful experience it is!
With all this, I got to experience being a patient in the hospital. Fortunately I was a well patient, which is quite different from being a sick patient.
I will admit that I’m a germaphobe, and I’ve spoken in previous posts about preventing infections while in hospital, with hand washing being the most important. I did suggest in one post that patients ask medical providers kindly, “did you wash/sanitize your hands?” as we know that people forget to do this sometimes.
However, being in the hospital myself, I realized that things move very quickly. There are numerous people in and out of your room constantly throughout the day (and night – so no sleep!) – from nurses, nursing students, the doctor(s), staff from the lab, housekeeping, and dietary departments, and even the chaplain to pray for a you.
While in the hospital, I never once asked anyone if they washed their hands. It just didn’t occur to me to do so, being caught up with my newborn, and also tired.
I now realize, that while hospitalized, you just have to trust that everyone does the right thing. And I feel like they did. As hospital stays go, I would say mine was a very good one.
Reassuringly, all hospitals are required to have an infection control team. This team ensures that proper procedures are in place to minimize the acquisition of infections in the hospital setting. Spot checks are sometimes carried out on staff to assess the rates of hand washing. Persons who violate handwashing protocols are “busted” then educated about the importance of this cornerstone of infection prevention – hand washing.
I will be on maternity leave for a while and probably won’t post on the blog weekly as before, for now. But, The Infectious Doctor will not quit the blog as there are still many questions left to be answered in simple terms.
Thank you all for supporting the blog and feel free to submit a topic you wish to see me cover in the future.
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