The Nature of Nursing Free Essay Example, 3000 words

(DOH, 2001) The maintenance of an acceptable level of cleanliness is part of promoting comfort, safety, and the well being of the patient. (Young, 1991) It is in fact the most basic human right that all nurses should give to the patients. One of the key aspects of personal hygiene is hand washing. Hand washing, among the nurses and patients, is very important in the respiratory ward because it is one of the most effective infection control measures we have in the service of health care. (Nicolle, 2007; Goldmann, 2006) Both nurses and client should wash their hands before eating, before and after using the toilet, and after having a physical contact with any body substances especially the sputum, blood, urine, and/or drainage that comes from cleaning an open wound, when changing the bed linens of the patients’ bed, and when assisting the patient with urinary and bed pan. (Nicolle, 2007; Chan-Yeung and Yu, 2003) The practice of personal hygiene, which is being overlook by a lot of health care providers, is proven effective in the prevention of dangerous type of blood infection that kills thousands of patients each year. We will write a custom essay sample on The Nature of Nursing or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Since it is the job of a nurse to constantly get in touch with his/her clients, hand washing is necessary to minimize the possibility of transmitting these micro organisms to our clients as well as to our own self. Cross-contamination of these bacteria and viruses, etc. would only cause more harm to the patients. The concept of keeping our fingernails short and clean is another important part of hand hygiene. Long fingernails are proven to collect micro organisms from the environmental surroundings including the contact with infected patients. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) (AORN, 1997), the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (CDC, 2002; p. 46), and other related or similar organization has already implemented a policy that every nurse and other health care providers should keep their fingernails short and clean all the time.