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Two Wrong Assumptions About Hand Sanitisers

By: William Penworthy

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Wherever you go in hospitals, doctors' surgeries or other health related environments, hand sanitisers in one form or another are abundant everywhere. Signs and notices inform you that you need to use it, not just once every now and then, but often every time you enter or leave an area within the establishment.

It almost seems a little over the top, as though it's more a case of complying with health and safety directives from Brussels rather than tackling any real problem we may have, or at least, in a way which might have any real effect.

Sadly, it's exactly this train of thought which leads many people to view the presence of hand sanitisers or sanitising wipes as being superfluous, and for other people to use. Perhaps those are the same people who leave the toilets without washing their hands, or perhaps they've washed their hands, and so deem the use of any additional hand sanitisers as unnecessary.

This is one of the single most significant causes of the spread of disease and infection. The truth is that whilst hand sanitisers clearly can't be expected to entirely eradicate infection and illness, the statistic would be considerably lower if everyone used them in the way that they were advised to.

Studies have revealed two main reasons why people don't tend to use hand sanitisers either in the workplace or when visiting establishments such as health clinics and hospitals.

The first main reason is that people don't genuinely feel it applies to them, because they washed their hands only an hour ago or so, and that the presence of such hand sanitisers is merely to fall in line with EU directives about health and safety which are over the top in any case.

This thinking is clearly misguided in every sense, but nonetheless prevails amongst an astonishingly high number of otherwise intelligent people.

The second reason why people often tend to avoid using hand sanitisers is because they believe that they are unpleasant to use, either leaving soapy, sticky residues on their hands, making their hands slimy or uncomfortable, or just smelling too strongly of an unwelcome perfume.

The fact that the use of hand sanitisers can save a great many people from a great many deeply unpleasant illnesses, and in some cases can actually save lives seems to be of less importance than the risk of slightly sticky hands or the presence of a slight perfume.

This doesn't even take into account the fact that almost all hand sanitisers and sanitising wipes are now alcohol free, perfume free and do not leave any residue or cause any stickiness. Perhaps if people used the hand sanitisers they'd have realised this, but it is the assumptions that are preventing them from learning the truth.

Certainly the health industry and government health bodies have tried to get the message across, but it does seem to have failed in the main, and many people are still failing to use hand sanitisers in the proper way.

The truth is that the moment you walk through a door your hand touches the same handle that has been touched by thousands of other people before you. It is as good as touching the hands of several thousand people you don't know, not to mention touching the hands of all the thousands of people that those hands will have effectively come into contact with.

Clearly you don't know where those thousands of hands have been, and what they've been doing (and to be honest you probably don't want to either!) but it only takes a split second touch for thousands or millions of bacteria and other germs to be transferred across to your own hands.

From pens to keyboards, mice to door handles, water cooler dispensers to chair rests and desks, your hands come into contact with a potentially bacteria infested surface about once every three minutes on average. In some cases this may well be much higher, but is rarely less than this average.

On each occasion, millions of bacteria have a chance to transfer themselves to your hands, and then continue to transfer themselves around whenever you subsequently touch anything else.

On average, your hands come into contact with your mouth or face about once every five minutes, meaning that the odds are massively in favour of the bacteria, rather than the people.

But by using hand sanitisers or sanitising wipes it is possible to stop bacteria dead, there and then, drastically slashing their odds, and massively improving both yours, and those thousands of other people who will be sharing the same surfaces, handles, pens and keyboards. By overcoming ill-founded assumptions, we can all help to do our bit to improve the health and welfare of everyone around us.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Hand Sanitisers | www.intersafety.co.uk | Sanitising Wipes

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