The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has launched a campaign to coincide with the World Hand Hygiene Day (WHHD) 2017 by holding a number of activities across healthcare facilities to emphasise the importance of hand hygiene.
WHHD is marked on May 5, and the campaign ‘Save Lives: Clean Your Hands’ will focus on the fight against antibiotic resistance in the context of hand hygiene and infection prevention and control (IPC) programmes.
Under this year’s theme 'Fight antibiotic resistance - it's in your hands' MoPH will create awareness among healthcare providers about the importance of hand hygiene.
The campaign aims to galvanise action at the point of care to demonstrate that hand hygiene is the entrance door for reducing health care-associated infection and patient safety. It also aims to demonstrate the MoPH commitment to this priority area of health care.
Huda Ameer Al Kathiri, Acting Head, Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality Department at the MoPH, said, “The World Hand Hygiene Day is an important occasion to increase awareness among healthcare workers, and encourage them to benefit from WHO policies.”
According to World Health Organization (WHO), every year, millions of patients globally are affected by healthcare-associated infections. More than half of these infections can be avoided with properly cleaned hands.
During the campaign by MoPH staff, healthcare facilities will be encouraged to revisit the five key moments of hand washing defined by WHO for healthcare workers as before touching a patient, before cleaning and aseptic procedures (insertion of devices such as catheters), after contact with body fluids, after touching a patient, and after touching a patient’s surroundings.
Also, a workshop will be held on May 10 and 11 with participation from the MoPH, Hamad Medical Corporation, Primary Healthcare Corporation, private hospitals and clinics. They will be trained to monitor and evaluate hand hygiene practices based on some specific directions given by the WHO.
Save Lives: Clean Your Hands annual global campaign was launched in 2009 and is a natural extension of the WHO First Global Patient Safety Challenge: Clean Care is Safer Care work.
