Why are nurses allowed to take their uniforms home and wear them back to work?

Answer 1

Interesting question. I highly doubt that nurses working four 12 hour shifts in a row are going to wash them until they get their four days off. And do they all wash them at home in hot water to kill germs? Not likely. But is it a health risk to us or themselves and their families. I can guarantee you if there was a flu pandemic, they would be leaving those uniforms in the parking lots.

Answer 2

I have a chronic physical disability from age 3 and until I was 33, there was barely a year that I was not hospitalized for at least 4 to 7 days. I always had a semi-private room, a bed that thousands had previously, a clean but well worn gown, ate from plates, utensils, cups that had been used before, breathed air that was recirculated and filtered then regerminated by sick patients, used a toilet that sometimes did not have disposable tissue covers for, and probably the one true sterilized and sanitary thing that touched my body was a disposable hypodermic needle. Now, if I had the mindframe to concern myself about a nurse taking home his or her uniform and laundering it themselves (which seems highly possible) and then worrying that such a garment would physically contaminate me when I've never, ever, seen a nurse or hospital tech have so much as a speck of link on them or be "unclean" in any way shape or form, then I wouldn't be asking this sort of obsessive-compulsive behavioral question on Yahoo Answers, honey--I'd be looking for a good clinical psychologist instead! Remember, even a multi-billionaire like Howard Hughes ended up like a filthy, reclusive hermit once he started thinking too much about germs.

Answer 3

Supposedly for practicality.This practice should be stamped out.

The fact that there is or is not a hospital laundry on the premises is irrelevant or whether the nurses own their uniform or not. The whole point is that nurses WEAR their uniforms in and out of hospitals, either bringing in external contamination picked on the way, or taking bugs from the hospital outwards.
On the continent nurses come into the hospital wearing their own clothes. They go to a changing area where they shower and change into clean surgical pyjamas daily which they discard at the end of their shifts.The rate of transmission of infections is far lower than ours.
If the nurses own their uniforms and have to wash them off the premises, there is no reason why they should not bring the clean ones in a bag, keep spares in a locker, change into them on arrival at work and remove them when before going home.
If the laundering is contracted out and uniforms go missing then the contractors should be held responsible. These days it is possible to have logos embroidered very cheaply to enable identification of ownership. Surely there are orderlies who can count the laundry in and out just like beauty parlour, or hotel staff do.
It is a simple enough matter. Doctors or surgeons who work in hospitals do not go around town in their medical whites, so why not have the same arrangements for nurses uniforms? In any case all uniforms should be supplied by individual hospitals and not funded by the nurses themselves.

Answer 4

I work as an alternative therapist and never take my uniform home or wear it out in the street. I think it is unhygienic of nurses to wear their uniforms home and back.

Answer 5

Policies vary; in most places, the nurse provides her uniform. Some (usually larger) institutions provide uniforms, allowing travel to and from work in street attire.
As a nurse I would welcome the chance to have my employer provide my uniform, which is often soiled and even damaged beyond repair on the job.
I can see your point leading to the containment of bacteria by leaving the uniform in the hospital environment.

Answer 6

Because the NHS cannot afford to clean the uniforms
and the changing rooms we have to use - can be
accessed by the general public.
I cycle to work in my uniform - come rain or shine.
Then I may have to do some shopping on the way home.
Could this be something to do with the infections in
our hospital's?
Midwife

Answer 7

you arent going to keep a hospital germ-free, the patients coming into the ER have "dirty" clothes, and the idea that a nurse can't wash their own uniform while treating people in an environment thats been contaminated by other many other people is a little impractical.

Answer 8

Nobody employed at a hospital should be allowed to leave hospital in their uniform, to cut down infection. Also I have seen people going into the canteen in their theatre wear , now are these being changed when they return to theatre Mmmmm I wonder.

Answer 9

Thanks to Margaret Thatchers 18 torturous years of Government and lack of investment in the NHS most hospital in house laundrys had to close.
All the laundry was then passed on to private contractors who deal with many organisations, not just one hospital and our uniforms went missing. Some nurses lost every single one they owned and had to PAY for new ones.
We take our uniforms home, my boy, to ensure we get them back, clean, ironed and in one piece.

Answer 10

Do they still do it? The hospital by me banned doctors and nurses from doing that.Any contact outside of the hospital and the uniform had to be taken off.