The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Hand hygiene `critical for nurses'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 14, 2007
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Hand hygiene `critical for nurses'

Staff Reporter

International Nurses Day celebrated

IN RECOGNITION: Director of Laboratory Services at Sankara Nethralaya Vasanthi Badrinath (second from right), honours nurses as part of the International Nurses Day on Saturday. — Photo: S.S.Kumar

CHENNAI : International Nurses Day was marked in the city on Saturday with programmes to honour nurses and release of a publication on them.

About 20 nurses at Sankara Nethralaya, with a decade of service behind them, were presented awards for their contribution towards patient care. Speakers at the function highlighted the role of the nurses as an intermediary between the patients and the institution. A lecture-demonstration explaining the importance of hand hygiene for the nurses was also organised.

Head of the Intensive Care Unit of Kanchi Kamakoti CHILDS Trust Hospital B. Ramachandran highlighted the role of nurses in executing the decisions of the doctors. Pointing out that hands were the common mode of transmission of infection, he stressed the need for hand hygiene and use of disinfectants or alcohol-based handrubs for reducing infections. Citing hand irritation and increasing workload as reasons for the poor compliance of hand hygiene measures, he said it must be made an institutional priority to bring down patient infections.

Director of Laboratory Services at Sankara Nethralaya Vasanthi Badrinath and nursing superintendent Lysa Sagar were among those who participated.

At Frontier Lifeline, a nursing magazine `Facets of Nursing, Redefining Nursing Care' was released by K.M. Cherian, chairman of the hospital.

Registrar of Tamil Nadu Nurses and Midwives Council Josephine, who received the first copy, recalled the pioneer of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, whose birth anniversary was commemorated as International Nurses Day. She underlined the role of nurses in treating the patients.

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