Fumigation
Fumigation of the rooms periodically is necessary to ensure the safety of the coming patients. Formaldehyde for fumigation purposes has largely superseded sulphur. When the room is ready for fumigation, the windows should be closed, the drawers of the furniture opened, all chinks stopped, the keyhole stopped with cotton, and the room left closed for twenty-four hours. It may then be opened, and, when thoroughly aired, is again ready for occupancy. The sheet method of fumigation, using a pint of formaldehyde to every 1,000 cubic feet of air-space, has been thoroughly tested and proven reliable. The drug is simply poured on the sheet, which is hung over a line in the room to be disinfected, which has been prepared as above directed. It should be remembered that formaldehyde has little or no power of penetration, and for this reason all possible surfaces of materials to be disinfected should be exposed.
The Daily Cleaning
In the daily cleaning, the work should be so divided throughout the entire hospital that the regular morning cleaning can be accomplished in a comparatively short time, leaving special cleaning to be completed later in the day. In order to accomplish this, it may be necessary to employ special cleaners by the hour. This does away with the necessity of providing meals and lodging for a large force of cleaners.
By nine o’clock in the morning the halls and stairs should be in order, front steps and walks cleaned, wards swept and dusted and the whole interior presenting a neat appearance. “Dust in a hospital is not only dust, but danger.” Domestic cleanliness and hospital cleanliness are quite different terms. The hospital housekeeper owes it to the public and to the sick whom she serves to keep the wards and rooms in the best condition for the promotion of health.
On the hardwood floors a soft hair brush will raise less dust than the ordinary broom. Wet tea leaves should be sprinkled whenever obtainable. The dust should be taken up frequently. The ward floors, unless polished, should be washed every day. It is well to change the water often and not use it too freely. Special attention needs to be given to corners. After each meal it will be necessary to brush up the crumbs.
Dusting
The dusting is even more important than the sweeping, and must be done with great thoroughness and care. Each patient in the hospital is helping to make the atmosphere impure by throwing off disease germs. Dried particles of pus, blood and excreta, lint from blankets and bedding, scales of epithelium and other matter, more or less dangerous, are flying about in the air and being deposited on ledges, skirting boards, window sills, bedstead rails and the various parts of furniture. To bring in a feather duster or a dry cloth and attempt to dust, is simply to flap the dust from one place only to have it settle in another. It results in a more equal distribution of the dust, but it is not dusting. Dusting is removing dust, and the only way that can be done effectually is by the use of a damp cloth, to which the particles will adhere. Furniture that will be injured by that kind of dusting is out of place in a hospital. Special attention needs to be given to dusting under radiators and in obscure nooks where dust will accumulate if not looked into daily.
Bath Rooms
The bath rooms, toilet rooms and lavatories also need constant supervision, and ought to be as carefully cleaned and ventilated as any part of the hospital. Indeed, special pains are needed if they are to be free from bad odors. Disinfectants should be used freely in these places at least once a week, and any evidence of imperfect drainage promptly reported and attended to. A good disinfectant for this purpose is the one known as the “American Standard,” made by dissolving six ounces of chloride of lime in a gallon of water. For cleaning bath tubs kerosene is recommended. It is a wise precaution to constantly keep posted over closets and sinks a notice prohibiting the throwing of matches, hair and insoluble material into them. More than one plumber’s bill has been caused by a careless maid emptying her bar of soap from her scrubbing pail into the closet. In fact, so common is that occurrence that a careful housekeeper has invented a device for holding the soap, thus preventing such accidents, and also the waste caused by leaving the soap in the water. This device is a tin box about eight inches long by four inches wide and four inches deep in front and six at the back. On the back are two pieces of wire bent over to fasten the box to the outside of the scrubbing pail. These can be made by any tinsmith at a very small cost, and will hold a cake of soap and a cake of sapolio. They will save many times their cost in a year.