After a few hospital stays over the last few months I was quite impressed with standard of cleanliness but it will vary from hospital to hospital . Our hospital seemed to have a system in place to clean and check at regular times plus a team on call if needed .

I'm afraid I will never have much of a regard for hospital hygiene while I still see them using swing bins.

It is almost impossible to put anything in a swing bin without it touching the lid

In a hospital this could include items contaminated with blood, vomit, faeces, urine, pus, to say nothing of run of the mill infections.

It is also nigh on impossible to put anything into a swing bin without touching the lid, thereby contaminating yourself with blood, vomit faeces etc.

Next time you put a paper towel into a swing bin in a toilet, register whether you touch the lid or not.

Then ask yourself did the last guy have aids, or hep. b/c, or even just common old e coli or Campylobacter.

If I had my way swing bins would b banned almost everywhere, as they were in my six campuses when I was still in health and safety, yet I still see them in use every time I visit a hospital (two or three times a month on average)

Rant over!

morddwyd

I don't know which hospital you're visiting, but I'm amazed to hear that it still uses swing bins. They went out of use years ago in most hospitals, and were replaced with the type described by Alan 14 and John 52 - all pedal operated.

As for patient-accessible bins, they are certainly not going to be used for the disposal of "blood, vomit, faeces, urine, pus" - that kind of waste goes into special containers, and they aren't used by patients.

You are far more likely to come into contact with those substances when travelling on public transport, or when using toilets in public buildings. One of the reasons I always keep a small container of surgical scrub fluid in my laptop bag is that I use all kinds of keyboards in clients' premises. Computer keyboards are likely to be crawling with bacteria.