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Dirty operating theatres at Rigshospitalet

TheCopenhagenPost
June 15th, 2015


This article is more than 9 years old.

Nearly half of the rooms at the country’s largest hospital weren’t clean enough

Rigshospitalet needs to clean up its act, says report (Photo: Henrik Jessen)

Nearly 40 percent of the operating theatres at Rigshospitalet are not clean enough, according to a report by the hospital’s cleanliness watchdog, Rengøringskontrollen.

The cleanliness situation is considered potentially dangerous as the numbers of multidrug-resistant bacteria in hospitals have increased over the last few years.

READ MORE: Capital region hospitals reducing their use of donor blood

Lars Buhl, the deputy head of the service centre at Rigshospitalet, acknowledged that there have been problems.

“It is true that there has been a challenge with the highest levels of cleanliness, known as K5,” Buhl told BT.

“At that level, it takes very little to have a room rejected by cleanliness control.”

High standards necessary
Buhl said that something as small as a spot on the wall, which had been wiped but didn’t dry properly, could cause a room to be rejected.

“But it is right that the standards are high,” said Buhl.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”