Hospital Infection Control

I'm not an expert on infection control, but I work closely with people who either work in the infection control department of a hospital, or are running their own infection prevention and control consultancy. They live and breathe this, and I am only repeating almost verbatim what they have explained to me. I'm pretty sure they have "thought this through".So believe what you want, but I'm gonna go with the experts on this, not someone who's only support is his ow

I hope they did not infect any medical device e.g. a ventilator.

For sure, that's why hospitals are jam-packed with hand anti-bacterial (fungal etc.) stations. They don't try to sterilise the doctor.

Do hospitals get a special exception or do we go back to risking infection due to insufficient sterilization?

I don't see why that's a problem as long as it's done away from treatment areas, preferably behind barriers and filters. AIUI this is already standard practice e.g. for handwashing or changing PPE anyway.

No, it's a reduction by a factor of 1000 or more. Doctors use them around infected patients and doctors aren't dropping dead like flies.

You obviously didn't read the article. First, "proper medical procedures" aren't followed - they provide food and drink near areas where human tissue may be flying about, presenting incredible risk of transmission of disease. Second, it's impossible to properly clean up hotel ballroom spaces from blood borne pathogens compared to labs available in teaching hospitals. Carpets and other textiles have no place in a lab.

With the exception of an actual emergency (i.e. "We need to see inside them or they will die, we'll deal with the infection risk later) doing this in most hospitals I know is one of the better ways to sign up for the infection control team paying you a visit.

Um, no? Unlike with toilet seats, tons of people got it this way. There were even cases of hospital outbreaks due to insufficient sterilization of reusable syringes.

I spent a month at one of the top US hospitals and I witnessed crazy unhygienic practices. The most common one is when the nurse assistant puts on gloves to clean the toilet and other items touched by bodily fluids and then proceeds to clean the food tray with the same gloves and often even adjust the IV lines. I got a lot of nurses angry by pointing this out (it must suck to hear someone else tell you that you're doing your job badly, but still). My mother caught a C diff infection. After