Your Letters - April 4

Hospital cleaning

FOLLOWING the Government's insistence that all NHS hospitals should have been deep cleaned in the fight to eradicate hospital acquired infections by March 31 2008, it has, this weekend, been announced that a huge percentage of hospitals will fail to meet the target.

However, it is encouraging to see that the Conquest Hospital is noticeably cleaner than some 17 months ago when my husband died of MRSA, whilst in their care.

C.Difficil is a killing infection that is dirt related. However, MRSA is most commonly humanly carried and therefore personal attention to cleanliness can never be taken lightly.

What concerns me is that 'proper' deep cleaning is both an expensive process and very disruptive to patients and staff alike.

So how will the cleaning standards be maintained, bearing in mind that NHS Trusts have a limited budget for any cleaning!?

It is important that all visitors who enter the hospital be the "EYES" for the Trust and should any person have any doubt that certain areas are not acceptable as clean standards within a hospital they should bring it to the attention of a member of staff and insist that the matter is attended to immediately! Look up, look down, look under beds, look everywhere!

However, the carriage of MRSA is an issue that every person who enters the hospital becomes responsible for. You could be a carrier of the infection. Deep cleaning will fail to work once people re-enter the areas cleaned!

Unless each person takes responsibility.

People do die from these infections and until it touches the lives of individuals, it might seem unimportant.

The MRSA Support Association conducted a laboratory experiment on a pair of patients slippers which had been in an area of deep cleaning. After six months the MRSA culture, had been grown on the dust taken from the slippers!

Complacency must not take over just because hospitals "look" cleaner.

MARION HAM (Mrs)

Staplehurst

Kent

Lucky patients

I AM writing to say I get a little fed up with reading about the bad reports on the Conquest Hospital.

I myself have been an inpatient on the cardiac ward (James ward) four times, and once on Baird, the standards I found were first class, the treatment I was given was second to none by all levels of staff.

I would also like to say the staff on the ward did not stop working from the time they came on duty to the time they left, waiting on us patients hand and foot, nothing was too much effort at any time of the night or day.

The food was fantastic when you take into account how many they have to cater for, and always hot.

The housekeepers were always cleaning in and around the ward, keeping things looking nice and fresh, and again if you needed something they would do it without question.

Overall, I think we are very lucky to have such a wonderful hospital with so many lovely people running it.

The doctor teams and nurses, housekeepers, and all other staff involved, after all where would we be without them, so come on people of Rother give more positive feedback.

Without them I would not be here today writing this letter.

RAY MOORE

Jubilee Road

Ward thanks

I HAVE just had a three-week stay in the Benson Ward at the Conquest Hospital and I would like to say a big thank you for all the wonderful care and attention given to me by the doctors and nurses there.

MARGARET WILKINSON (Mrs)

Dorset Road

Wheele bins