HSE/SECH Media Release
29 April, 2024
The HSE/South East Community Healthcare’s Farnogue Residential Healthcare Unit in Wexford has joined in implementation of the national “RESIST” hand hygiene campaign.
The Farnogue facility is split into two levels. Abbeygale House, situated on the top level is a 30-bedded unit (24 single en-suite rooms and two three-bedded en-suite roodms) dedicated to older persons' services. It caters for residents whose dependency levels range from low to maximum.
Selskar House is situated on the ground level of Farnogue and is purpose-built facility with accommodation for up to 20 residents under the care of the Psychiatry of Later Life team of the mental health services. All bedrooms are single, en-suite and situated around a central courtyard. Residents are generally aged over 65 and have a diagnosis of dementia or serious and enduring mental illness.
RESIST is a brand for a number of hand hygiene and infection prevention and control initiatives under the HSE Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control programme (AMRIC).
One of these initiatives is a rollout of the RESIST hand hygiene awareness programme. The programme promotes a combination of hand hygiene training with standardised national training materials. Hand hygiene has been at the forefront of all of the initiatives that the HSE has been implementing to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The RESIST campaign is to refresh hand hygiene messages and to keep promoting the importance of clean hands.
Treesa Antony (Acting Person in Charge, Abbeygale House) says:
“Cleaning your hands properly, at the correct time, when delivering care to our residents is the most effective way to stop the spread of many infections, including COVID-19. When healthcare workers like doctors, nurses and carers, keep their hands clean, they help prevent the spread of serious healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). These are infections that can happen in any healthcare service. Abbeygale is always looking to improve our standards and this hand hygiene awareness programme is aimed at all healthcare workers and public utilising Abbeygale. The RESIST programme will help us to do that and we are delighted to have been selected to be part of the rollout in Older Persons Services.”
“Some infections found in healthcare facilities can be very serious. We can all help stop the spread of these infections by making sure that our staff, residents and visitors clean their hands. We want our staff to continue their hand hygiene training and join the Superbug Resistance. We have always implemented good hand hygiene practices in Selskar, but this new programme will help us to refresh and energise our hand hygiene approach.”
Martin Shore (Asst. Director of Nursing/Service Manager, Selskar House) says:
“We are also delighted to be rolling out this programme in Selskar and we are delighted to have been selected to be part of the rollout in HSE Mental Health Services.”
Staff, residents/patients, patients and visitors all have a role to play, to help stop the spread of Healthcare Associated Infections and join the superbug resistance. This programme will help us to refresh and energise our hand hygiene approach and our Link Practitioner and Infection Control Nurses will be supporting us to do that”.
Last updated on: 30 / 04 / 2024
