Is it just me or have detergents got weaker during the last ten years or so? It seems to take more work these days to get grease off the kitchen floor, bath and even the dish washer doesn't seem to work as well.
Sugar soap doesn't seem to remove as much skin as it used to either.
Has there been some save-the-planet legislation that's made the stuff weaker?
Cheers
Is it due to COSHH regulations? Hence toilets no longer smell of bleach. MRSA is rife in hospitals, etc.
it all went downhill when they got rid of Trich 111
Regards Jeff
How do you get grease on the bath?
Detergents have a worse effect on my hands now than they used to but I've not noticed any less cleaning efficiency, in fact I'm continually impressed by modern cleaning agents. I think - well, I KNOW - that my skin is much thinner and more fragile than it used to be.
Mary
MRSA is rife in hospitals, etc.
How do you get grease on the bath?
Body fat.
Dave
Are you sure the thinning skin isn't a sign of ageing? (Ducks below parapet)
Not alone, but ass part of a cleaning routine it's invaluable.
Hospitals have been cleaned by contractors for years, MRSA is a pretty recent thing. I'm not saying it's nothing to do with lack of hygiene, I'm not an expert in such things (although our house is anything but clean and hygienic and we never suffer from infections complaints) but you can't always blame politicians. I think this could be the exception!
Mary
I keep my fat inside me.
Mary
I KNOW it is. Along with the loss of hair colour, wrinkles and wisdom.
Mary
Our main county hospital is pleasingly paranoid about the pickup of infections, but the local hospital (which is totally managed by a private trust) is getting a certain reputation for laxity and the corresponding high chance of picking up an infection. People around here prefer not to be sent there.
Hospital cleaners just like driving around on the corridor polishing machines!
Excellent suggestion.
I also tried googling it; wonderful
mike
Two years ago Spouse had a hip replacement at a private hospital (paid for by NHS because there was such a backlog and elections coming up that heads were going to roll) and it was fabulous! I've never seen such cleanliness, it was absolutely spotless. Even walls and ceilings were cleaned weekly. The standard of everything was beyond belief. Matron saw to that.
But one of the patients' husbands was incensed because he wasn't allowed to take his dog in.
You can't judge cleanliness by whether a hospital is private or NHS.
Mary
This has to do with sloppiness all round, not just contractors.
During a recent visit (which was five times longer than it needed to have been but that's another story) to a medical assessment unit (this is an adjunct to A&E) in an NHS hospital I noticed the following:
- A bottle of disinfectant handwashing solution and disposable towels by the entrance with a notice asking visitors, cleaners and medical staff to use it on entry. I was in the place in sight of this for ten hours and saw it used once by two visitors. The medical staff didn't use it at all.
- Medical staff going from patient to patient and not washing or wiping their hands in between and typically not wearing disposable gloves either.
- Bodily fluids of various kinds dropped on the floor and just left. The floor wasn't cleaned during the whole ten hours.
- The toilets were cleaned once during the whole period, at the end of the day. During the day, they were left covered with shit and medical staff were using them. Hopefully they were washing their hands.
This was a unit where a significant proportion of arriving patients were elderly and frail people who are quite likely to have compromised immune systems.
Quite frankly I was disgusted but because I have appropriate medical insurance was able to be transferred to a private hospital for treatment. I left the NHS hospital in a taxi under my own steam because no transport was available and with a envelope of scrappy photocopied medical notes.
I was there for four days and the difference couldn't have been more of a contrast.
- Individual room with own bathroom which was cleaned three times a day. The rest of the room was cleaned twice a day.
- Similar bottle of disinfectant by the door. Everybody, and I mean everybody used it on entry.
- Disposable gloves used for every medical procedure.
It would appear to be both a facilities and an education/attitude issue.
That's a horrifying story but, I suspect, not unique. When I had brain surgery in 1993 - big NHS teaching hospital - the cleaning was good. When I had cancer surgery in 1998 in a special unit in the same hospital it wasn't as good but not BAD. The actual cleaning rota was more or less the same, the application to the job by the cleaners was very different. In fact the difference between individual cleaners was noticeable.
Oh. When Spouse went to the private hospital he had to sign a consent form for his notes to be transferred. The whole thick, lifelong folder went before him.
Yes. Spouse's private room was more like an hotel room (much better in some ways).
I agree. But then people say it's down to economics. I don't think so, the cleaning staff in the private hospital were paid the same as those in the NHS one so they weren't economically motivated.
We haven't private medical insurance but decided that if we need elective surgery we'll raise money on the house to pay for it.
Mary
Mary Fisher wrote :-
I think this is a society / parenting / education thing, for years I have noticed that the number of people (mostly young) who don't wash their hands after a No 2 is very high, in fact around 90% +. Now if the countrys basic hygene standards have slipped to this standard what do we expect ?
Regards Jeff
Unfortunately I don't think it is. Admittedly there were a lot of people there that day, but it wasn't so busy that people couldn't have taken time for basic hygiene.
Whether this could be corrected by paying them more, I doubt or simply by education or perhaps both, I don't know.
I rather suspect that it's a working environment and cultural issue. A family friend is a radiographer and used to work in said hospital. I met her a couple of weeks ago when I went for a follow-up Xray at the private hospital where she now works. She's a different person- much happier. I asked her why and it wasn't that she was paid more or even that the equipment was better - these were pretty much the same - but she told me that it was simply a better working environment in terms of the way that colleagues behaved and the professional way in which work was done.
This was the immediate set of notes. Most of the important data had not been recorded properly or regularly and several tests had to be repeated.
I suppose you could say that this was rather like that, but by no means oppulent. It was functional more than anything. It looked like the food was good, although sadly I wasn't able to eat anything very much.
One important aspect was that it was quiet. Perhaps some people like to have a lot of others around them when they are ill - personally I don't, never mind the infection risk issue.
I think that there is a cultural and educational issue with all of this which to me is inherent in the whole way that this system works.
It seems that most people don't make a connection in their brains between the huge sums of money that they pay in taxes etc. to fund the NHS, with what they are actually getting. It's as though they feel that it's free and since it is free anything that they get is good; while forgetting that they are paying or have paid for it.
This seems to permeate to enough staff, mainly administrative but at all levels, that they are doing the patient a favour and he should be grateful for anything that he gets since it's free. Granted they probably don't get paid a lot, but it isn't an excuse for this attitude.
I think that's very sensible. Medical insurance is expensive considering that chronic conditions are excluded and especially when you have to pay tax on it as well. Obviously it becomes more expensive with time.
Treatment is expensive also. This recent exercise cost just under £2000 for the hospital stay plus treatment and pathology etc. but not including consultant fees, which I suspect will be another £500. That's approximately a year of insurance premiums for the family. On the other hand, this is the first significant treatment that any of us have had in five years, so one could argue that it's really £500 per year.
I agree with you though. At the point that I require medical care and perhaps don't have insurance any longer, I will pay for it myself.
>
You're losing wrinkles?
Mary, you're looking younger every day :-)
Owain
According to the Gastro-intestinal consultant on Jamie's School Dinners, they so rarely do a No 2 nowadays, it's hardly surprising...
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