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"Wash Your Hands Or I'll Kill You!"

My Mom used to say "No hand-washing, no dinner. End of discussion!" Once in a while she'd say "Wash those filthy hands or I'll kill you!" I'm pretty sure she was kidding, though I was more interested in dinner than in tempting fate.

Now, I've watched hospitals spend countless hours writing and re-writing policies, hanging signs, relocating sinks and educating the troops about hand-washing's benefits. Maybe it's time to learn a lesson from Mom: "...wash your hands or I'll kill you!" Nothing else seems to work.

Same goes for maintaining patient privacy. Hospitals teach and lecture and inservice. They harangue and orient and propagandize. And in true bureaucratic fashion, they make it a policy and procedure issue. Maybe it's time to say "Shut up about all patients - celebrity or otherwise - or I'll kill you." Farrah Fawcett might agree with me. So would Mom.

And I doubt you'd have to cull very many before the rest of the herd got the message.

Ah, maybe not. I'm sure there'd be some unforseen consequences. Too bad. Once again, legalities interfere with pragmatism.


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