Hospitals in Britain allowed to sit on patients beds.
Britons will visit their friends or relatives are in hospital to give them courage to stand because they usually are not allowed to sit on beds.
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In a commentary released Wednesday in the British medical journal BMJ, Dr. Iona Heath argues that the measure is unjustified and denies patients the opportunity to be near their loved ones.
Britons visiting friends or relatives are in hospital to give them courage to stand because they usually are not allowed to sit on beds.
In a commentary released Wednesday in the British medical journal BMJ, Dr. Iona Heath argues that the measure is unjustified and denies patients the opportunity to be near their loved ones.
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British officials say the ban to sit on the beds is necessary to prevent visitors or medical staff infected patients.
“Throw away the temptation of sitting on the bedside,” says in its website Treatment Center Peninsula NHS in Devon. All hospitals in Britain have similar recommendations, besides denying that visitors bring fresh flowers.
“I was shocked when I heard,” Heath said in reference to the prohibition to sit. The doctor said he definitely would sit on the bed of the patient responders in a home or in hospital.
“Never be discouraged doctors to sit, because patients feel that the physician constantly excused as long as they sit on the bed,” Heath wrote in his commentary. “Such interactions are valuable and should be facilitated rather than hindered.
The health department of Britain said that each hospital is what determines if allowed to sit and bring flowers.
“Some hospitals consider it good practice that visitors and medical staff do not feel in the beds, to reduce the risk of infection from one patient to another,” said the institution. “Patients with resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA, for its acronym in English), for example, can contaminate the bed with her skin, and evil can be picked up by someone and passed to another person.”
Royal Orthopedic Hospital in Birmingham does not allow visitors to sit on beds or chairs of the patients and bring flowers.
“Although it reduced the ratio of cut flowers and infections, some hospitals choose to ban them in the halls where they are patients with weak immune systems,” said Health Department.
Both measures are practiced even though there is not much evidence that actually serve to protect patients.
David Bates, professor of medicine at Harvard University and director at the World Health Organization of a group studying the safety of patients, does not know if there is evidence to suggest that the prohibitions to sit on the beds and bring fresh flowers result in lower rates of infection.
Bates said that hospitals should focus on proven methods to prevent infections, the appropriate use of antibiotics and hand washing. He recalled that similar prohibitions do not apply in U.S. hospitals.
Source: health news
