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A RECENT INSPECTION of Temple Street Children’s University Hospital has found that environment and patient equipment hygiene were at critically low levels and needed to be addressed urgently.
The first unannounced inspection was carried out by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) at Temple Street hospital on 27 July 2016.
A re-inspection six weeks later examined the level of progress which had been made regarding environmental and patient equipment hygiene in the areas inspected.
The report based on these two visits found that the environmental hygiene in both St Patrick’s Ward and St Bridget’s Ward was poor overall and “was not in line with current national standards and guidelines for hospital cleaning”.
First visit
“Cot frames, bedside storage units and recliner chairs in vacant bed spaces in St Patrick’s Ward that had been cleaned following patient discharge were stained.”
Multiple surfaces within the wards inspected were dusty and these included bed undercarriages, chairs, examination couches, floors, over-bed lights, wall surfaces, radiators, ventilation grilles, staff workstations, a games table and horizontal ledges.
Other unclean surfaces, including the interiors of waste bins, cupboards, storage units and fridges, did not appear to have been included in ward cleaning specifications. Poor finishes around radiators in St Bridget’s Ward facilitated dust collection.
It was also reported that toilets were cleaned once a day and that a janitorial service was available to staff if required during the day, which was not in line with recommended national minimum cleaning frequencies.
Other factors which contributed to poor environmental hygiene in the wards inspected included an outdated hospital infrastructure, poor maintenance, very limited space in patient care and ancillary areas, lack of storage space, the design and positioning of beds and cots and bedside storage units which did not facilitate effective cleaning.
Second visit
During the second inspection on 6 September, “significant improvements” were made to clean both St Patrick’s Ward and St Bridget’s Ward.
Both ward environments were found to be clean. It was evident that enhanced cleaning had been performed in both areas
New flooring had been installed, painting and woodwork repairs had been carried out, and surfaces had been upgraded. Although “deep cleaning and improvement works” had been carried out since the first inspection, and the report finding the hospital “98% compliance with standards”, there were incidents of a lack of hygiene upon the re-inspection.
“Overall patient equipment in St Bridget’s Ward was clean with few exceptions. A
stained commode was stored in a locked cupboard on a corridor outside the ward.”
The commode was stored in this manner because there was not enough floor space within the ‘dirty’ utility room, which was the appropriate storage area for this item.
“In addition, bedside suction catheter holders were unclean.”
In St Michael’s C Ward:
Heavy dust was present under pull-out beds for parents in two patient rooms and behind a fixed cupboard in the open plan renal dialysis area. The design and manner in which these items were fitted did not facilitate effective cleaning.
The report recommended that more soap dispensers should be provided, that regular hygiene training be provided to staff, and that a hygiene audit be conducted.
Temple Street must also publish its Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) on its website within six weeks of today, and provide HIQA with the web link.
The aim of unannounced HIQA inspections is to assess hygiene in the hospital as observed by the inspection team and experienced by patients at any given time.
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Say what you like about the church, but when the nuns were in charge of the hospitals, you could have eaten your dinner off the floor.
And in many cases you’d have been forced to.
So true
How much can be attributed to outsourcing cleaning services?..and corner cutting by cleaning contractors..poorly paid and poorly trained staff.
Regardless someone internally should carry responsibility for standards. That’s where we run into the real problem. The HSE don’t do responsibility.
@Kieran OKeeffe: How much training do you need to know what clean means???
Its a hospital evie not a house. You have to be trained to a certain standered by people who are experienced.
@Vincent Wallace: ‘Heavy dust’ and ‘stains’ were found. Seriously, does anyone need training to know that this is not clean?
@EvieXVI: why unannounced? surely all the visits/inspections are only viable if their unannounced.
hse needs to be given a new name just like fas, that way they can say “we have learned from our problems and will endeavour to be better at our jobs” irish solution to an irish problem!
So, who is getting fired for this?
Disgraceful.
The contract cleaners maybe
Tory Boy will be along anydayto make a well flagged visit to let the country know that FG are committed to the highest standards in the health service, blah,blah,blah.
Support staff in hospitals (cleaners) have been short staffed for years because of Government cut backs. Again trying to put the blame for this on ordinary workers.
Nobody going to get fired. Same old fking bollox.
@Funfair: I doubt it. The contract cleaners will be contracted for X number of hours.
If that isn’t enough to keep the place adequately clean there isn’t much more they can do.
It should be up to someone internally to either decide more budget needs to be allocated to give more time, or, if they really are simply not up to the job, to get someone else in.
Neither appear to have been done, so again, responsibility should go back to someone within the hospital for this.. but it wont.
I’ve been there recently and it was pristine – it was a new ward and the emergency department, and the staff and treatment were absolutely excellent.
The answer to some of the problems raised is new infrastructure. I’m still astounded that that is planned for St James’s rather than Blanchardstown.
Disgraceful..we have cancer patients on trolleys and you expect this skumbag government to care about kids..
Yep. We have wasters like wallace and daly defending Leon wright irelands most violent criminal in court. We also have sf defending slab and every other criminal entity in the country. We also have aaa and pbp more concerned about water charges in jobstown than the state of our hospitals. A total disgrace is right
I was in the Mater Public this summer for 3 nights, its was shocking to me, obviously not to the people who work in the Hospital or run the hospital. blood under my bed, feces on the walls in the bathroom. I checked myself out, and asked to be treated as an outpatient, the doctors agreed but sent an administrator to me to sign a load of documents to absolve them of any liability if I took a turn for the worse. This amazed me , I thought if they put that much effort into running the hospital conditions would be far better
You dont have to take my word for it , google ‘Hiqa st teresa’s ward ‘ or any other hospital.
I suspect like me most people dont care until they end up in hospital
Our hospitals were once staffed by full time cleaners and matrons supervised all cleaning.
There was a rota for different areas during the week and several hours of the day were set aside for this cleaning.
The floors, bathrooms etc were cleaned everyday and buff polished.
The junior nurses had the responsibility of cots and high chairs and wiping beds down when the patient left. Now they’re lucky if the have time take care of their patients properly.
The some bright spark had a great cost cutting idea to outsource the cleaning contract.
The contract cleaners work a fraction of the hours and it wouldn’t take a genius to work out the end result. I’m sure the owners of said companies are well compensated.
Hospital cleanliness should always be a priority but the bean counters don’t see this.
I was recently in hospital for treatment and saw some one cleaning. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was unbelievable. Very bad cleaning.
It’s old, dated and grubby. My daughter stayed there about 5 years ago, thankfully never had to go back but often stayed at Crumlin witch was marginally better.
A new assessable children’s hospital it needed asap.
This is the problem when you have an entirely government-run children’s hospital system. We saw the same level of dreadful hygiene levels revealed in inspections at other public hospitals in recent times.
The poor standards will ultimately be no different when the state-run National Children’s Hospital is built at St James’ Hospital in Dublin. As well as being a truly awful location for the parents of sick children to get to (from within and without Dublin, and can you imagine the traffic and the stress when trying to find the hospital?) St James’ is also located right above where Dublin’s sewers converge. What do you get in large sewers? Lots of disease-carrying rats. And this is the place where the government has decided to put a new national hospital for sick children. All this will be compounded by the traditional inefficiencies and poor hygiene standards of a state-run hospital (which the National Children’s Hospital at St James’ will be).
I am surprised that it was an unnanounced inspection as usually hospitals and health centres etc hear through the grapevine that Hiqa are due to visit them in a few days time…….. which rather defeats the purpose……….same with mental health inspections ! there is always a whif of the them in the air.
All down to poor management. Any cleaning by private contractors should be inspected. No difference if the cleaning was carried by HSE employees. Unannounced inspections are the norm in the uk.
they should pay a surprise visit to the paediatric unit in Clonmel OMG – my special needs son spent a week their and the cleaning woman was using the same bucket of water for all the rooms and hallways. Under the beds were not cleaned in months, tape around the windows to keep out dust no air conditioning. The sink in the room was not cleaned in 7 days by anyone other than me. I had to change his bed sheet myself and clean the portable tray, the unit housed the laundry rooms and nuns bedrooms back in the day. they stuck a couple of wall stickers to give the impression it was a place for children. The bathrooms were filthy and the children’s A & E is right beside the bedrooms and all the little sick kids get to here day and night is the screaming of frightened little one and the kids already in the rooms frightened by the constant screaming.
I once had to attend A & E every day for weeks and the same cleaner “cleaned” it every day. In other words brushed and mopped the floor. Not once did he clean the doors, chairs or toilets. Bring back matrons.
Dust
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