In order to comply with JACHO and to decrease infections our hospital has those gelled alcohol santizers everywhere with signs to encourage everyone to use them when they walk by. There are also signs everywhere that say "No Smoking". Of course no smoking is allowed in the hospital and you can imagine that the patients who smoke will drag their IV poles and pumps, scds and drains out the door and around the corner to the smoking area. You can gues what happened next. One of our regulars who was in the hospital drying out from a blood alcohol level of 0.37 had used the sanitizer on the way out and still had a lot of the gelled alcohol on his hands and had dripped some on his gown. When he lit up, he lit up! He tried to put the fire out on his gown and this lit. Luckily he was not badly hurt. (He had disconnected his oxyegen back in the room) I wonder if he had MRSA and if the fire killed it? Later we found out that the same patient had some of the sanitizer in his room and had been drinking it.
2 comments:
Hi Throckmorton -and so is that a lawsuit waiting to happen?
After all...the hospital had the hand sanitizer easily accessible and they let him go outside and light up.
(I am being facetious.)
Something just seems so wrong about a patient hooked up to those things going out to smoke.
Then again... it seems even more wrong when the ENTIRE respiratory department smokes.
Docs smoke in the ICU in France. Their lunches last an hour and a half, and they serve wine in the hospital cafeteria.
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