The Ghana Health Service (GHS), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), held an official launch and symposium to commemorate World Hand Hygiene Day this year.
The purpose of the event was to spur action in health care institutions to promote hand hygiene and increase patient safety.
Every year, World Hand Hygiene Day is commemorated as part of the "Save Lives: Clean Your Hands Campaign," which highlights the importance of increasing handwashing in healthcare facilities to reduce Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs).
In 2009, the annual worldwide campaign "Save Lives: Clean Your Hands" was recognized as part of a global effort to improve hand hygiene in healthcare as the first global patient safety concern. Hand hygiene, according to Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director-General of the GHS, is the starting point for reducing HAIs.
As a result, all healthcare institutions have to create a culture of hand cleanliness among their employees as a strategy of infection prevention and control.
He believes that when that culture becomes second nature to healthcare workers, they would be better able to influence society.
The empirical evidence demonstrated that practicing excellent hand hygiene was the most effective strategy for reducing the development of HAIs, and the financial benefits of doing so far surpassed the expenses. As a result, he claimed, GHS has established IPC and WASH programs at all levels of care in all 16 regions of the nation, as well as a monitoring and evaluation system for IPC/WASH indicators in institutions across the districts.
Around 70% of healthcare staff do not routinely exercise hand hygiene, according to WHO representative Dr Francis Kasolo, and just 50% of surgical teams followed hand hygiene best practices during a surgical patient's hospital stay.
Surgical site infections are the most prevalent kind of infection in low- and middle-income countries, with a total incidence of 11.8 percent compared to 1.2–5.2 percent in high-income countries.
Hand cleanliness, on the other hand, has been shown in trials to minimize the risk of infection.
Even though there were a number of healthcare institutions where water flow was a problem, Dr Winfred Ofosu, Eastern Regional Director of Health, recommended such establishments to utilize Veronica buckets to safeguard the safety of patients.
He recommended healthcare staff to demand handwashing stations from their facility administrators and leaders in order to ensure their own and their patients' safety as well as enhance health outcomes by promoting a handwashing culture and cleanliness.