Important Safety Measures for a Hospital are given below:
1. Equipment: For a high quality laundry service the laundry must be fully mechanized with weighing machines, washing machines, hydro extractors, calendaring machines, tumblers, irons, sluice machines, dry cleaning machines and trolleys separate for collection of used linen and distribution of clean linen. Not only that, there should be an efficient system of planned preventive maintenance and repairs.
2. There should be written manual of policies and standardized procedures for all activities such as collecting used linen from the departments, receiving it in the laundry, sorting into various categories, sluicing/disinfection, weighing the linen load, washing, hydro extraction, drying, calendaring, ironing, inspection, distribution of clean linen, etc.
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3. Availability of adequate supply of power, water (of right quality), steam and high quality cleaning materials.
4. Availability of adequate number of sets (six sets of linen) to ensure adequate clean supply for at least 48 hours considering the odd contingencies when the department may be closed for 1-2 days.
5. Body linen for patients must have different sizes for easy fitting. Ill fitting, tight linen causes both undesirable exposures as well as, discomfort and can be a cause of dissatisfaction, especially in ladies.
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6. A procedure for sorting of different categories of linen (soiled, infected, foul, radioactive) and sluicing/disinfection of the infected linen, decontamination/disposal of the radioactive linen, before putting into the washing machine.
7. Procedure for inspection of the ready-for-issue clean linen before distribution/issue to separate the worn out/faded, stained, patched, smelling or poorly ironed linen.
8. A procedure for periodic testing of the quality of wash by sending the swabs from the ready-for-issue linen for culture.
Linen service in a hospital plays an important role in providing an infection free, clean and fresh environment to the patients.
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Unclean, stained, patched and smelly linen, like bad quality food, can be a source of dissatisfaction of patients as well as high incidence of infections. A good, patient focused service must eliminate all such deficiencies.