First, thank you for the positive vibes, prayers and goodwill sent my dad’s way after he ended up in an ICU with influenza, pneumonia and sepsis. Day 11 and he’s still in ICU. He is a little better, but this is a brutal battle.
I had never visited ICU before this happened. It’s hard to see a loved-one hooked up to so many devices and so sedated they don’t know you’re there. ICU doctors, nurses and everyone working the unit have stressful jobs. Constant beeping and alarms, exposure to infectious diseases, emotional distress of patients and family, and reports and paperwork to complete. I thank them for their hard work.
After a patient leaves an ICU room, a team comes in to disinfect. Hospitals have to be vigilant to reduce exposure to germs that like to live in hospital settings, such as MRSA and C diff. Those germs are resistant to many antibiotics and can live a long time on a surface or fabrics. One cleaning tool is a UV light-emitting robot. It looks like a photo shoot with strobes is going on behind the black curtains.
Here’s the inside view of the robot in action and how the pulsed xenon light treatment works.
This old-fashioned method helps reduce spread of germs, too.
And one more step after the soap, a dollop of hand sanitizer.
~Debbie