Waterford Psychiatry Dept backs 'clean hands' initiative

The HSE South East Community Healthcare Infection Prevention and Control Nursing Team organised and promoted a RESIST Day in the Dept. of Psychiatry (DoP) in Waterford.

Three Infection Prevention and Control Clinical Nurse Specialists were in attendance on the day to support and educate staff on Hand Hygiene and promote AMRIC and RESIST.

Staff members participated in the RESIST rollout including Nurses, Student Nurses, Doctors and Administration staff.

RESIST is a brand for a number of hand hygiene, infection prevention and control initiatives under the HSE’s Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control programme (AMRIC).

One of these initiatives is a rollout of the RESIST hand hygiene awareness programme.

The programme promotes a combination of hand hygiene training with standardised national training materials.

Hand hygiene has been at the forefront of all of the initiatives that the HSE has been implementing to reduce the spread of COVID-19. 

The RESIST campaign is to refresh hand hygiene messages and to keep promoting the importance of clean hands.

The Department of Psychiatry (DoP) is a 44 bed acute mental health inpatient facility serving the Waterford/Wexford catchment area and is located on the grounds of University Hospital Waterford.

The RESIST campaign is being rolled out in the DoP with the support of the Assistant Director of Nursing Caroline Kinlan and Clinical Nurse Manager Joanne Rice.

Speaking at the RESIST day in the DoP, Assistant Director of Nursing Caroline Kinlan said:

“Cleaning your hands properly, at the correct time, when delivering care to our patients, is the most effective way to stop the spread of many infections including COVID-19."

"When healthcare workers like doctors, nurses and carers, keep their hands clean, they help prevent the spread of serious healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). These are infections that can happen in any healthcare service." 

“The Department of Psychiatry has an excellent record in hand hygiene but we are always looking to improve our standards. The RESIST programme will help us to do that and we are delighted to have been selected to be part of the rollout in HSE Mental Health facilities and look forward to the ongoing IPC education sessions here in the Department of Psychiatry.”

HSE Infection Control Specialist Aimee Dever said:

“Staff, patients, and visitors all have a role to play, to help stop the spread of Healthcare Associated Infections and join the superbug resistance. This programme will help each facility it is rolled out in, to refresh and energise its hand hygiene approach and our Link Practitioners and Infection Control Nurses will be supporting them to do that”.