‘Swachh Gandhi’ campaign initiated

Hyderabad: Good hygiene & cleanliness are corner stone of good health and there is an acute need to improve hygiene & sanitation in public hospitals. Many patients fear accessing free health care in govt hospitals due to the hygiene factor.

Hence, the process of transformation had to begin somewhere to show that there’s a solution if one is able to change the mindset of the stakeholders, especially the patients and their attendants.

This set the idea for the launch of an initiative called Swachh Gandhi - a new campaign to keep Gandhi hospital clean – to be run jointly by the sanitation staff of Gandhi Hospital in active collaboration with NGO Helping Hand Foundation.

Keep Clean, Stay Healthy With the message of “Keep Clean, Stay Healthy”, the focus would be on patients and their attendants to ensure that their actions do not contribute to worsening of the situation.

This is necessitated as most of such patients & attendants being uneducated about hygiene and sanitation issues in hospital setting, get proper guidance.

With persuasion and counselling, a 10-member team of volunteers of Helping Hand Foundation will not just create awareness on various aspects of hygiene and sanitation but educate the patients & their attendants on the importance of keeping the hospital premises clean for their own benefit said Mujtaba Hasan Askari Trustee, Helping Hand Foundation.

The yearlong sensitisation drive will start with waste management - How wastes generated inside hospital wards ought to be handled would be explained to the patients and their attendants by ensuring that there is proper segregation of hazardous waste from dry and wet waste.

In a manner that they find conducive, our volunteers would politely communicate the need to adopt clean habits and show them how proper disposal of left-over food – which are brought inside the wards by patients’ attendants -- become an easy source of food for stray animals.

Dr. P. Shravan Kumar formally launched the program in the in the MM 3 ward in IMC 3rd floor on Monday and said that this is a very significant step taken by the hospital and the NGO and will go a long way in improving hygiene factor in the Gandhi Hospital.
Personal hygiene

There are several patients, who remain bedridden for long without proper bath. There's a possibility that such patients could pose a threat of spreading infection among attendants and hospital staff.

Hence, there is a need to educate attendants on how to give sponge bath to such patients to maintain personal hygiene. The NGO said, it will not only counsel such patients but will also provide a pair of towels and a bottle of Dettol of bathing to long term bed ridden patients - Furthermore, those dirtying hospital premises like spitting on the walls, cleaning utensils and clothes, wasting water or other precious resources would be counseled on proper utilisation of existing facilities for the betterment of the hospital.

Restricting attenders in wards Over-crowding by attendants is one of the common reasons that trigger chaos in government hospital setting and needs to be curbed before things go out of control. Though every floor has a waiting hall attached for patients’ attendants, they are rarely used as they are not guided properly. There is a need to explain to the accompanying attendants as to how they could be risking their own health if they over-crowd hospital premises.

In order to ensure that all potential crises are averted by acting early before the problem hits, volunteers will collect feedback from patients and attendants about the problems and issues they are facing. Their feedback will be transmitted to the officials concerned for remedial steps.