Hospital visitors must get the message

I THINK it’s time for hospitals to stop putting up polite notices asking visitors and staff to please wash their hands at the dispensers installed usually at the main entrance.

No, put up a sign that reads: “You are a selfish, dangerous yob if you come in here without using a squirt of alcohol rub to disinfect your hands. It’s free and will take five seconds. Failing to do so could put at risk the lives of the many really sick and vulnerable patients we have here. Go home if you can’t be bothered — you are not welcome in a place that takes care of the sick.”

I spent five minutes recently waiting at the doors of a major inner-city hospital for a wheelchair for an elderly lady. While there I disinfected my hands before entering.

Most of the scores of people who entered did not do that.

After all the warnings about MRSA and other health risks associated with poor hygiene, how dare they put at risk patients so ill their lives may hang in the balance, or those who have very poor immunity or large wounds from recent surgery, etc.

Let’s not be so ignorant as to assume our germs are harmless to the sick.

Jacqueline Cotter

Gortnaclohy Heights

Skibbereen

Co Cork