Edwina Currie says doctors are 'too posh to wash hands' - Telegraph.
The former Tory health minister, who is now patron of the charity MRSA Action UK, said she had also seen medical staff wearing outdoor clothes and long sleeves on wards, increasing the risk of infections. She also said that trusts should spend money on extra staff to tackle problems of cleanliness, rather than facing fines. Mrs Currie, who caused a scandal in Government when she warned of the dangers of salmonella in British eggs, said: “I’ve come across many instances of bad practice which at the least are folly, at worst criminally negligent. “Sharps being stuck into mattresses ‘so we can find them.’ Commodes rusting and smelly. Floors with stains, pools of congealed blood by toilets, waste bags left in corridors. Intravenous lines being reused repeatedly with inadequate sterilisation. “Doctors ‘too posh to wash’ their hands, or wearing scruffy outdoor apparel with long sleeves. No wonder it’s so hard to eradicate MRSA and other superbugs.”
