GOJO Industries-Europe is once again supporting the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual ‘SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands’ campaign, part of the global movement to improve hand hygiene.
Its worldwide advocacy day falls on 5 May, and this year it’s focused on achieving appropriate hand hygiene action at the point of care. Its ‘seconds save lives – clean your hands!’ slogan reinforces the message that taking a little extra time to practise hand hygiene makes all the difference.
To achieve this, healthcare workers should have access to good quality alcohol-based hand rub products, clean water, soap, single-use towels and an adequate number of functioning sinks within patient zones. This enables hand hygiene practise at the five key moments: before touching a patient, before clean/aseptic procedures, after body fluid exposure/risk, after touching a patient, and after touching a patient’s surroundings.
2021 has been designated the ‘International Year of Health and Care Workers’, so focusing on their protection is just as crucial. The PURELL brand’s focus on ‘formulation without compromise’ means that products in the range have been proven to maintain skin health and have high antimicrobial efficacy.
Chris Wakefield, Managing Director UK & Ireland, GOJO Industries-Europe Ltd commented: “As a founder member of the WHO Private Organisations for Patient Safety group, we are strong advocates of making hand hygiene second nature to everyone – this past year has shown how this is more important than ever. We hope that this year’s campaign encourages everyone to do their part, as it takes commitment from all for hand hygiene programmes to be successful.
“We strongly encourage everyone in the healthcare industry to unite in support of hand hygiene improvement. As well as healthcare workers cleaning their hands, IPC practitioners need to continue mentoring and championing the act, facility managers must ensure that supplies are available at every point of care, and policy makers should invest now to enable hand hygiene for all. Everyone, the general public included, must make clean hands a habit. It protects us all.”
The WHO is inviting everyone to use the hashtags #CleanYourHands #HandHygiene and #InfectionPrevention on social media to ensure ‘Save Lives: Clean Your Hands’ posts are picked up by the campaign.
