MRSA

MRSA

Hospital Laundry.   Steam Laundering vs Cold or Warm Water Wash.

Imagine a situation whereas a family calls in the police because there is a rabid dog outside their gate.  The police bring in an dog inspector who catches the rabid dog on a pole leash and loads it into his van to be put down.

Later you hear that in order to save on costs, instead of having the rabid dog put to sleep, the dog inspector have just let it loose in some other suburb.

Unthinkable you say, yet in today’s world  we have  large hospital group’s that have chosen to move  away from steam laundries that had the ability to kill all the germs with thermal disinfection.   Instead they have opted to send the soiled and infected linen to a cold water laundry in order to save money. 

1.                    They  are now accepting their still germ and virus  infected clean linen  back from the cold water wash laundry  endangering their own patients with HAI

( Hospital Acquired Infection.) ( MRSA. XDR-TB, MDR-TB.)  

                                                        i.            During typical virus replication and maturation, a single infected cell can make many hundreds or even thousands of new (progeny) virions. For a virus which produced 100 progeny virus particles per infection, P is equal to 100.

                                                      ii.            That is, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, . . . for a bacterial cell vs. 1, 100, 10,000, 1,000,000, 100,000,000, 10,000,000,000 for a virus over the same number of generations

2.                    What could have been one sheet  badly covered with a dangerous virus, has now become 100 sheets contaminated in the same wash each holding the same dangerous virus  replication.  Nosocomial  infection, changed  now  to H A I ( Hospital Aquired Infection ) is  a problem worldwide. It has been shown however, that in some First World Countries, where a sound infection control  system  is in place, the incidence (and cost) of nosocomial infection is low.  Think MRSA. XDR-TB, MDR-TB.

3.                    Through using cold water laundries,  Hospitals are now also  sending these virus, bacteria and germs down the water drainage pipes to lodge and reproduce  in cracks and joints in the system multiplying eventually to become  public domain.    Think MRSA, XDR-TB, MDR-TB.

Hospitals should retain and  destroy their bacteria, virus and germs via a steam laundry,  not spread them around the city  in an attempt to cut costs.

John Connolly    031 4620179    0824588912      mwj.connolly@mweb.co.za

John  is the chairman of The  Natal Laundry, Cleaners & Dyers Association.

He has 54 years experience in Steam Laundering.

He specalises in Industrial Contract Laundry and  will not service Hospitals and Hotels.