CONTENT
1.0 Introduction 2.0 Objectives 3.0 Main Content
3.1 General Safety Rules and Practices
3.2 The Role of the Nurse in Moving and Handling Patients 3.3 Control of Infection
3.4 Commonly Employed Comfort Measures in the Hospital 4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment 7.0 References/Further Reading
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Safety, prevention of accidents and promotion of comfort are vital to survival, and these needs continue throughout life. When a client/patient enters the health care facility, an unwritten contract is established between the client/patient and health care personnel. Inherent in this contract is fact that the health personnel owe the patient a duty of service.
As part of the package of that duty of care is the obligation to safeguard the patient from harm/danger as well as to ensure that the patient is made comfortable throughout his/her period of hospitalisation.
In view of their infirmities, hospital patients are more susceptible to accidents than any other group of people. As such the management of all hospitals must be safety conscious. Even though it may be argued that safety in the health care setting is everybody’s responsibility, the nurse is usually at a vantage point to detect any unsafe condition that could precipitate injury to patients and visitors in health setting and promptly institute corrective measures. Hence, the nurse should be well informed and be acquainted with safety practices in the ward setting and measures that promote patients’ comfort.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit, you will be able to:
• outline the general safety rules and practices in the health care setting
• describe the role of the nurse in moving and handling patients including principles underlying moving and lifting of patients
• give examples of risks in a health care setting and suggest preventive measures
• describe the role of the nurse in infection control
• describe the different comfort measures employed in patient’s care in the hospital and explain their underlying principles.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 General Safety Rules and Practices
First, it is important for you to believe that most accidents are preventable.
Secondly, most accidents in the hospital result from carelessness or an error in judgment (Donovan, Belsjoe, and Dillon, 1968). Here however are some of the safety regulations and practices in the health care setting:
• Walk rather than run – especially on stairs and along corridors.
• Open doors slowly. Do not open a door by pushing on the glass part.
• Walk on right in halls – especially when pushing a wheelchair or stretcher. Installing corridor mirrors which enable those wheeling a stretcher or other patient vehicles to see around blind corners.
• Installing safety devices, wherever practicable including cautious use of bedside rails.
• Ensure adequate lighting by illuminating areas in which people move and work.
• Ensure good housekeeping and avoid wet patches on the floor.
Using non-slip floor coatings. Placing rubber mats on inclines and in the bathtub before a patient uses the tub.
• Do not engage in horseplay or practical jokes.
• Observe principles of good body mechanics. Follow correct lifting procedures when lifting a heavy object or lifting a patient. Possibly introducing safety classes which teach correct lifting procedures and other safety principles.
• Remember the elderly and the very young are more accident prone than the adult. Protect them as much as possible.
• Endeavor to properly label all materials including medicaments and water taps in bathrooms. Discard all unlabeled containers and bottles. Never use the content of an unlabeled container. Analyze causes of medication errors and instituting changes.
• Provision for refuse collection and proper waste disposal to maintain hygienic condition.
• Ensure proper bed spacing is maintained.
• Maintaining aseptic technique for all invasive procedures.
• Appropriate institution of isolation techniques and barrier nursing in infectious cases.
• Periodic fumigation of hospital ward and surgical theatres.
• Never overload an electric socket and avoid using defective electric equipment.
• All electrical appliances left on should be switched off and deplugged at the close of the day. Employ measures which minimise the accumulation of static electricity.
• Obey all NO SMOKING signs. Never smoke or permit anyone to smoke in the vicinity of oxygen equipment that is in use.
• When smoking in designated areas, see that cigarettes are completely extinguished in receptacles provided.
• Report any injury to self or to others immediately and secure first aid.
• Be safety-conscious at all times. If you notice a safety hazard, report it at once to the right person. Provide educational programs for employee which emphasise that accidents are preventable.
• When in doubt about how to handle or do something the safe way, ask someone with more experience and training than you for help or advice.
• Instituting incident reporting system and appointing members to a safety committee who are saddled with the responsibility of reviewing safety practices, analyzing potential safety hazards, and recommending constructive procedures to prevent accidents.
(Donovan, Belsjoe, and Dillon, 1968)
Activity 1
Quickly recap some of the safety rules and practices in the hospital.
3.2 The Role of the Nurse in Moving and Handling Patients
In professional nursing practice there will always be the need to move patients or heavy equipment from one point to the other and this exposes the nurse to additional risks. Parboteeah (2002) quoting the Disabled Living Foundation (1994) indicated that one in four nurses has taken time off with back injury sustained at work, this for some meaning the end of their nursing career.
The back is like a mast or a pillar that makes functional and productive movement possible. Geographically it is an entity comprising the vertebral column with its articular and periarticular structure and the musculature extending from the occiput to the sacrum. The back functions as a structure as well as a mechanism. As a structure, the back can withstand a comprehensive force 10 times the weight it normally supports. As a mechanism, with little effort the back can bent forward, backwards, sideways and even twisted. However, as strong as back is and as vital as it is, it is not immune to injury especially those arising from poor lifting techniques.