No less than 1560 hand hygiene stations have been established in Ukraine, with WHO support, after a WHO survey in 5 tertiary referral hospitals revealed that there are not enough hand sanitizers at points of medical care.
Hand hygiene is a core approach to ensuring patient safety during medical care, yet in many Ukrainian hospitals it remains overlooked. “We found out that this shortage has been obstructing health-care workers from following correct hand hygiene procedures,” says Dr Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative and Head of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine.
Based on this urgent need, WHO provided over 100 Ukrainian hospitals with essential hand hygiene equipment, including wall-mounted elbow-press dispensers, hand sanitizers, liquid soap and paper towels, as well as information materials and checklists to ensure hand hygiene compliance. WHO also developed “5 rules for hand hygiene”. These comprise disinfecting hands before touching a patient, before aseptic procedures, after exposure to bodily fluids, after touching a patient and after touching a patient’s surroundings.
Establishing hand hygiene stations
When the Poltava regional hospital joined WHO’s project on advancing hand hygiene and started installing wall-mounted elbow-press dispensers, it caused a stir among health-care workers. “They were not used to having hand sanitizers in every room, by every patient’s bed, so for many it came as a surprise,” explains the hospital’s epidemiologist, Vita Postolnik.
Elbow-press dispensers allow hand hygiene before and after touching patients, before clean or aseptic procedures, and after contact with body fluids and patients’ surroundings. Areas for changing in and out of personal protective equipment (PPE) were also fitted with dispensers to ensure hand hygiene before PPE use and during PPE removal. “It is an innovation for many medical care workers, so we are raising awareness to explain that regular disinfection is a priority anti-epidemic measure that must be adhered to at their level,” says Dr Postolnik.
Dr Postolnik concludes that expert advice and information materials received from WHO and the Public Health Center of Ukraine helped them to connect the dots and bring their hand hygiene procedures up to a new level.
Providing knowledge to improve hand hygiene
To raise awareness of the importance of complying with the “5 rules for hand hygiene”, experts from the WHO Country Office in Ukraine conducted more than 50 on-site training sessions and over 10 online webinars for health-care providers nationwide. As a result of this training, personnel from Poltava regional hospital developed standard operating procedures which include the “5 rules for hand hygiene”.
By the end of 2021, WHO will have provided equipment for an additional 500 hand hygiene stations and will have conducted over 30 more on-site and online training sessions on hand hygiene for health-care workers across the country.
This story has been developed with financial assistance from the European Union (EU) as part of the EU and WHO initiative on health system development in Ukraine, as well as with a financial contribution from the Government of Germany, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).