Nursing an Infectious Disease

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 873, 27 April 1956, Page 25

Nursing an Infectious Disease

This is the text of a talk on health broadcast from ZB, YA and YZ stations by DR. H, B. TURBOTT, 5 i a as Faontarmtes of ealt

N many homes during the last few months mothers have been nursing children, and sometimes grown-ups, sick with an infectious flu-like illness that may have been mild poliomyelitis, Until diagnosis is made the patient is kept at home, supposed to be isolated from the rest of the family. Again, the hospital may find an admitted case to be mild and able to go home early, The household may be asked to take the patient homé and continue the segregation there until the isolation period is over, thus releasing a bed for a more serious case. Mothers may find useful some suggestions about the home nursing of infectious diseases — poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, whooping cough, influenza and others. Home nursing is easy enough with infectious diseases provided the principle is remembered that infection is to be kept within the sick room and preferably not picked up by the nurse. Nurses are always dealing with infections in hospitals but rarely catch them personally, and home nursing can be equally safe, The patient must be in one room, without visitors, and everything leaving the room has to be washed or disinfected, and kept separate. You don’t want to be running to and fro all the time, so think out what will be needed in the sick room. The bed pan or chamber will be kept covered in a special place. Always wash hands after handling this. A supply of newspapers will serve for wrapping articles or scraps for burning, Some paper bags or bags made from newspaper for pinning at the bedside will hold soiled handkerchiefs, while a flour bag or bucket is useful for soiled linen until it can be boiled. In the bucket it can soak in disinfectant solution as desired, but in the minor infections of childhood, failing a boiler, a good wash in soapy water followed by a good sunning will deal with the viruses and germs.

Sorf out the crockery and cutlery needed. Keep and wash and dry these separately from that of the householdplenty of boiling water for the final rinse and they will dry themselves, Line the food tray with paper and use some for wrapping food scraps. Plates should be scraped and the scraps burned. If you have any choice of room, pick one looking out on to some activity, if possible, for this helps against monotony in any than a _ short illness, If the bed is too low and bed-making catches you in the back, four wooden blocks six inches high under the ends will raise it and ease your muscle strain. The weight of the bedclothes, often heavy on aching limbs, can be eased by removing the top and one side of a suitable wooden box and placing it inside the bedclothes at the foot of the bed. In a long illness, this also serves as a device keeping the feet up to avoid footdrop. A small bed-table is desirable. A home-made substitute is a light board resting on the backs of two kitchen chairs placed with their backs to either side of the bed. Cleaning the sickroom is best done with a vacuum cleaner, putting the dust in paper afterwards and burning it. A separate broom and duster is the alternative, The nurse must always wear an overall inside the sickroom, A smock or frock opening down the front should be worn reversed so that the opening is: down the back, In this way you can put it on and take it off without soiling the hands by brushing against the front contaminated by patient attendance parts. Keep this overall in the room. ‘Hang it on the inside of the door as you leave and put it on as you enter, Just by, and handy, there should be a bowl and soap for handwashing immediately after hanging up the overall.