Hand Hygiene Issues

Running head: HAND HYGIENE ISSUES
HAND HYGIENE ISSUES
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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HAND HYGIENE ISSUES
Description:
During the time of placement in the respiratory ward, I once had to care for an old patient
with multi-morbid disorders. He was primarily admitted to the ward because he faced shortness
of breath the previous night and was immediately admitted to the respiratory ward. He was
diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders and his excessive levels of smoking
were stated to be the main contributor for the disorder. Besides, he was suffering from diabetes
and had many wounds all over the skin due to poor skin integrity. He had unmanaged diabetes
with high levels of blood glucose. The wounds were not dressed properly and therefore, nursing
professionals needed to dress his wounds properly. During one of the busy days, I was given the
responsibility of dressing the wounds by the senior facilitator. It was a very busy shift and I had
to handle many patients within a short span of time. Therefore, I was rushing from one patient to
another completing their assessments of health, meeting their needs, documenting important
information and many others. I was supposed to administer a medication to one patient and dress
the wounds of the quoted patient at the same time. Therefore, I could not set the priorities right
and chose the dressing intervention as the first task to proceed with it. As I was in a hurry, I
could not get time for washing my hands and using sanitizers. I also did not wear gloves out of
hurry and immediately started dressing the wounds. After completing the task, I went to the next
patient for administration of the medication. Later, my mentor called me in the ward, where she
stated that the quoted patient had developed infections of MRSA and his sufferings had
increased. She was upset about my carelessness and asked me to be careful from the next time. I
visited the patient seeing that the infected areas on the skin had become red and swollen and the
person was suffering from intense pain.

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HAND HYGIENE ISSUES
Feelings:
Immediately after witnessing the entire incident, I felt embarrassed, as I could not fulfill
the responsibility and oath of a nursing professional to provide safe and quality care to a patient.
I felt terribly upset with my own performance, as I could not do justice to the expectation of the
nation from a responsible nursing professional. I felt quite sad that I could not step up the
expectation of my facilitator who had so much trust and confidence on my knowledge. I was
quite disheartened by seeing the suffering of the patient which had increased due to my improper
hand hygiene. I realized that it was because of my improper following of hand hygiene protocols
that had made the patient infected with MRSA (methylene-resistant staphylococcus aureus).
However, I also felt that this failure in effective treatment helped me realize that I do not have
proper skills for effective maintenance of hand hygiene and therefore. Therefore, I promised
myself to become more knowledgeable and develop expert skills that would help me to maintain
hand hygiene effectively and reduce chances of spread of infection successfully.
Evaluation:
The bad part of the experience was that it resulted in huge suffering for the patient.
Nursing philosophies as well as bioethical principles advice nurses to follow the two important
ethics of beneficence and non-maleficence (Shinde and Mohite 2014)). Beneficence dictates
nurses to provide care to patients which are not only safest but also evidence based and would
bring out the best outcomes in the patient helping in their comprehensive and holistic recovery
(Smidy et al. 2015)). Non-maleficence on the other hand dictates healthcare professionals to
apply interventions in ways that should not cause any form of suffering or negative impacts on
the health of the patients. However, I had failed to follow both the bioethical principles as my