Sanctioning doctors for hygiene breaches ‘stupid’

Sanctioning doctors for failing to wash their hands has been dismissed as a “stupid suggestion” by the head of Beaumont Hospital’s transplantation unit.

David Hickey, national director of transplantation, said hospitals were short of doctors and sanctions such as Beaumont Hospital is planning to introduce would lead to a situation where “you’ll have no one left in the health service”.

The hospital said it was planning to introduce a range of sanctions for staff who fail to comply with hand hygiene and standard precautions policies after the health watchdog found doctors in the neurosurgical intensive care unit and the emergency department were, more often than not, failing to wash their hands before or after seeing patients. Sanctions would range from withdrawing certain (unspecified) privileges to disciplinary action.