I was just thinking to myself, how things have changed over the years regarding hospitals.
When I was younger,I worked as a domestic in a country hospital, and we always used Metholated Spirits for cleaning everything from floors to windows, the hospital always smelled nice and clean and sterile, and when we cleaned the floors it was on hands and knees scrubbing the floors with steel wool, and rinsing off with Metho afterwards, and then polishing them.
Nowadays when they clean floors in hospitals its just a quick rub over with a mop and disinfectant.
If we didn't get the hospital cleaned properly we were reprimanded by the residing Dr
Also I don't like the Idea of carpet in hospitals these days as I feel that carpet would harbour bugs and viruses.
I like Metho for cleaning and still use it today at home for cleaning.

BE CAREFUL, Mathyolated spirits is ethyl alcohol aith methyl alcohol added. The methyl can be absorbed by your skin *it is added so people do not drink it). See if you can find regular ethyl alcohol without the methyl added.

I agree Ozzie, it seems that the workers are getting paid more and doing less. It's like a very small amount of people even care anymore. One possibility is they're not given the right tools/product to effectively clean things from their superiors.

I haven't been in a hospital for over ten years now, when my father in law had a major stroke. The bathroom in his room, which he was never able to use anyway, was filthy. Not only dirt, but bodily fluids including blood from other patients who used the room before him.

Here's some contaminated equipment news just from VA hospitals. https://www.vawatchdog.org/contaminatedequipment.htm

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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~Immanual Kant~

NatMedTalk and Beyond

Thanks for the warning on the metho saved1986

K2c that link about contaminated equipment, is a real eye opener, I think the trouble is today also is that most of the hospital cleaning staff are on contract and have to rush their work to get finished on time.
Sorry about your Father inlaw, it was probably a good thing he didn't have to use the bathroom poor man.

The hospital is the most filthy place in any city. It really is very dangerous. 20 percent of surgeons carry MRSA in their noses... so staff are filthy also.... and if 20 percent of surgeons carry mrsa you can be sure they are taking it home and propagating mrsa in their environment.

It doesnt have to be this way but hospitals refuse to tote the bill to get it clean and this is done with UV light in all the rooms, and near the skin for staff and patients to pass their hands under after washing and ozone in the ventilation system.

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Thats interesting Arrowwind,about the UV light and ozone in the ventilation system.

And colloidal silver should be added to the cooling tower water to prevent Legionnaires' disease.

UV lights should also be installed in all ventilation duct work, and the filters should be treated with colloidal silver.

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Let Food Be Your Medicine And Medicine Be Your Food.(Hippocrates)

I took my granddaughter who is two to see her Mom after she had been there for two months. While there, a nurse said this is the worst place to bring her and while there, a lady came in an mopped.

Anyway, within a day, my granddaughter developed a fever that shot up to 103.9. I called my son's wife as I did not know what to do for one so small. She brought out her baby Tylenol and showed me how to put her in luke warm water to bring down the temp. I gave her one dose and I uped her Mannatech and waited. Next day the same and again put her in the tub. Watched her like a hawk and by the evening she was up playing again. I do not know what it was but told my daughter I was not bringing her back - daughter came home within a week and half.

I thought if that mop was pushing around the germs, it was no wonder so many stay sick in places like that.

After studing about antibacteria soaps in hospitals, I also felt very sorry for nurses and workers.

This is 2005, maybe it's worse now:

Aside from trying to put forth some sort of �professional image� just what practical value is there in wearing a tie?

None? (that's a question) How else would you distinguish a republican from a democrat?

It started as an undershirt garment to keep the neck warm, then migrated to the outside of the shirt. But the shirts of upper class people needed to be seen. They were show-offs. So they kept getting more narrow. Did you know that in one French era the king had long lace collars? It was inappropriate for anyone to have a collar longer than the kings.

Now, all they do is hide the shirt buttons and subtly distinguish the 'class' of a person, as they always did.

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- Jim
Life is just one damned thing after another - Elbert Hubbard

From The Telegraph in the UK (I'm assuming this means ties are banned in the UK?):

Tie ban for doctors to stop spread of MRSA



By Alex Berry

12:01AM GMT 18 Dec 2006



Doctors have been ordered to ditch their ties over fears they are spreading the deadly hospital superbug MRSA.


An NHS trust has also told all its staff involved in direct patient care not to wear jewellery, wrist watches, scarves or any "superfluous clothing".

Even consultants have been warned that being smartly-dressed when giving patients bad news could present an infection risk.


The move, by Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, follows a report by the British Medical Association calling for doctors to abandon their neckwear.


Matthew Fletcher, the trust's medical director, said: "Reducing our MRSA rates is at the top of this trust's list of priorities and the new dress code policy is part of a broad infection control strategy. The policy is about doing everything to minimise the risk of infections spreading.

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"This includes removing clothing which prevents staff from washing their hands effectively.

"All staff, both male and female, involved in direct clinical care will be expected to not wear jewellery, wrist watches, ties, scarves, wraps and any superfluous clothing.

"We do know that this will involve a culture change as many doctors are used to wearing a jacket and tie, particularly when delivering bad news, and many patients expect doctors to look 'smart'.

"The simple fact is reducing the spread of infection is more important than looking smart and both doctors and patients need to accept that ties are not essential for the delivery of a professional service and good healthcare."

Dr Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants' committee, said that while doctors had previously been told to avoid wearing ties in areas where there was a high risk of infection, the latest ban seemed the most stringent.

"It does sound a particularly widespread ban," he said. "However, we are aware that combating hospital infections is a major concern.

"We also know that patients react not just to what someone wears, but also to their attitude and their general response to the patients.

"Bearing in mind the evidence around the transfer of infection, and the fact that patients are not as concerned as perhaps they used to be about how people are dressed, I think doctors should have less of a concern and one would hope that this policy has had discussion and agreement across staff groups."

However, Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, which represents primary care trusts, and who wears a bow-tie at his GP surgery, said research showed patients had more confidence in smartly-dressed doctors.

"I certainly would feel less professional if I was not wearing a tie," he told The Sunday Times: "It is all right if you are an antipodean doctor but not in this country.

"This is political correctness rather than science."

The Brighton and Sussex trust, which includes the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath and the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, has one of the highest rates of MRSA infection in England.

More than 3,500 cases of MRSA blood-stream infection were reported in NHS hospitals between October 2005 and March 2006 and the number of deaths where the superbug is named on death certificates has increased each year from 1993 to 2004.

I do think that some of the hospitals are trying to make things better. There really needs to be state control on this one and reporting agencies for many hospitals are not sufficiently motivated to change their habits.

Cleanliness for sure is an issue but so it the repeated use of antibiotics.. Although doctors are prescribing less antibiotics over the last 6 or 7 years it is not handling the problem. Seems like when you go into the hospital the use of antibiotics is just huge!
I don't think we will ever get past this MRSA thing until doctors start using antimicrobials other than antibiotics. MRSA is just the tip of the ice berg on what is happening with microbes. Most of that still remains in the hospital while MRSA has moved outside and it is now more prevalent in the community than in hospitals. So hospitals have started checking all who enter for MRSA and then they are isolating them. Meanwhile these MRSA pathogens are spreading through the community. How to control that without acting like Nazi police?

I use to have a number of links to companies that specialize in UV light and ozone applications in hospitals for sanitation but lost them when a computer crashed. I helped my husband provide informaiton to a large hospital in Oregon that he was working on to hook up with these sources. They wanted their new hospital to remain clean. Last time I checked about 5 years ago only a handful of hospitals used this type of equipment in their vents, patient rooms and surgical suites.

Some interesting replies here, to my thread thanks.