Fast Foreward
BOSTON – Festooned to the wall of the men’s restroom in the venerable Faneuil Hall is a sign near the sinks that highlights the historical significance of hygiene in late 18th century colonial America.
The sign features a prominent early American hero, more well-known for other revolutionary deeds than this: “As the first President of Boston’s Board of Health, Paul Revere supervised the city’s privy (outhouse) inspectors, who made sure residents properly emptied out their privies and didn’t let them overflow.”
We have scant overt written historical evidence of early hand-washing practices during that era. Certainly, their understanding of the motivation behind proper hygiene would be considered way more primitive than our own nearly three centuries later, having been enlightened to the existence of micro-organisms.
Logically, we should have learned a thing or two since then about the value of hand-washing for sure. Ideally, we have, if the raft of public service announcements, media coverage and exposure, marketing campaigns, educational lectures and seminars, in-depth studies and surveys, and plethora of helpful products and useful electronic and mechanical tracking mechanisms are any indications.
Logically, we should have learned a thing or two since then about the value of hand-washing for sure. Ideally, we have, if the raft of public service announcements, media coverage and exposure, marketing campaigns, educational lectures and seminars, in-depth studies and surveys, and plethora of helpful products and useful electronic and mechanical tracking mechanisms are any indications.
And yet here we are. In fact, one company labeled a survey result they uncovered as “the dirty truth” and correctly so: “Healthcare workers only clean their hands as often as they should 39 percent of the time, and just 8.5 percent of hand sanitization events adhere to all steps of the proper technique.”
As consenting adults, shame on us. Despite the best efforts of elementary school teachers routinely urging their students to wash their hands after participating in a variety of activities, children apparently don’t seem to be retaining that training into their teen years and adulthood.
Let’s be frank and honest: We’ve all learned the motivation and justification for hand-washing since early childhood. Must we attribute our follow-through (or lack thereof) to the hectic nature of our overtly over-burdened and busy lives? Must incessant administrative crises and multi-tasking mayhem distract us from what we all know and recognize as foundational and fundamental to fighting off infections and preventing the transmission of communicable illnesses and diseases?
We also mire ourselves in debates and discussions about the subtle intricacies of proper technique as if movement or time elapsed somehow delivers the fatal blow to microscopic and nanoscopic organisms enjoying time-shares on our skin. Or maybe not enough.
These represent mere distractions from what we all know deep down to be true. Perhaps the sign near the sinks in the men’s restroom of the Boston Science Museum educates us the best with the sparest of instructions — salient, simple and steadfast: “Sing all the words to ‘Happy Birthday.’ That’s how long you should be washing your hands.”
Let’s celebrate, shall we?
Rick Dana Barlow
About the Author
Rick Dana Barlow | Senior Editor
Rick Dana Barlow is Senior Editor for Healthcare Purchasing News, an Endeavor Business Media publication. He can be reached at [email protected].
ID 17662080 © Nenovbrothers | Dreamstime.com
ID 215391805 © Michael Vi | Dreamstime.com
ID 45735336 © Frui | Dreamstime.com
ID 326743844 © Rokas Tenys | Dreamstime.com
