There is no excuse for a dirty hospital. Digits of blame can be levelled at staff, under-funding or the fabric of the building itself, but when it's people's health, recuperation and ultimately lives at stake, there can be no place for the words like "soiled, dusty" or "rubbish" in inspection reports.
The findings of March's hygiene inspection at the Tyrone County Hospital highlighted a need for "significant improvement". Out of the four wards analysed, the TCH was found wanting (described as below the minimal standard) in its Outpatients, Urgent Care Unit and Ward 7. Only the Renal Unit receiving a partially compliant hygiene standard.
There is no excuse for a dirty hospital.
If you compared this to a restaurant which received a damning hygiene report, it would be closed down immediately until further notice and/or compliance with an overhaul. Management would have to fulfil stringent criteria before people's lives were put at risk again by the inadequacy of its cleaning and hygiene
Unfortunately, this is not the way of the National Health Service and regardless of misadventures in sterilisation, the show, as they say, must go on. This isn't action plans and future recommendations: This is fighting fire.
Many of the recommendations in the report relate to the fabric of the building that was built in 1899 but, imminent Omagh Area Hospital or none, attention and focus must be centred on those patients the hospital has already been charged with caring for. Don't they – at the very least – deserve cleanliness in their illness. It's next to Godliness, after all.
According to the Trust, cleaning plans are already in place and the recommendations made by the independent Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) are already being acted upon. But dirty is dirty is dirty. Shouldn't we have been cleaning up as we went along.
There is no excuse for a dirty hospital, that much is certain. Though why it happens points to ineffectuality across the board, from staff to money to mentality to practice. Perhaps whilst cleaning up our act at the TCH, we might consider cleaning up the system.
There is no excuse for a dirty hospital.
