Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

I get the impression from the Minister's replies that the concentration is on identifying when someone has an infection and then treating it. That is very important, but it is more important to ensure that people do not get the infection in the first place. I am always shocked to see health workers leaving hospital at 1 p.m. for their lunch or going out to do their shopping in their uniform and coming back on to the wards without changing uniform. Change is needed in this area. We can have all the alcohol scrubs we like, but there is an attitude that once the person attending the patient puts on sterile gloves, the patient is protected somehow. It protects the person, but not the patient.

We need to give patients the courage to question those who are treating them because at the end of the day people are afraid to ask professionals if they washed their hands, even though their treatment will depend on that person. If nurses do not have a place to change their uniforms and if they are supposed to wash their own uniforms at home, we cannot expect the type of control that is necessary to ensure that infection does not occur in the first place.

See this speech in context