WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

ABSTRACT

The present study was conducted to address a few parameters that are recognized to contribute to hospital hygiene improvement in the framework of policies enforced to prevent hospital acquired infections (HAIs) at the Université des Montagnes’ Teaching Hospital. These included amongst others hand hygiene, waste and reusable material management and cleaning. The necessary pieces of information were collected with questionnaires, interviews and observations. To assess the quality of the patient’ environment, products from swabbing performed on surrounding commodities were submitted to microbial investigations. Culture, isolation, identification of bacteria as well as susceptibility tests for 15 common antibiotics were conducted according to standard guidelines (REMIC, 2014; CA-SFM, EUCAST, 2014). Significant findings revealed that 44 - 48% of healthcare workers always wash their hands between two procedures; 77% were aware of the danger that might accompany blood exposure accident and 65% knew where they could have information for better practices. Moreover, 33% did not change gloves between two activities on the same patient though glove availability was 100%; 20 - 42% recapped soiled needles; 70% work indiscriminately in all hospital wards. Most bacterial isolates were Bacillus spp., 50%. They were least frequently isolated from specimens collected in the maternity, consistent with the policy enforced to prevent contamination at that level. Resistance rates were high and multiple-drug resistance frequent but could not serve to rule out reliable conclusion because the number of isolates tested was reduced. Overall, many amongst the workers knew what they normally had to do. Why implementation did not follow remained to be addressed, though material resource availability could be pointed out. Relocating institution’s priorities would be essential for safer healthcare in the hospital. This requires contribution of all stakeholders, in line with the current One Health concept’s paradigm.