You aren't so silly, I would have thought so, too. As a rule, we wouldn't go to work wearing the same clothes each day, at least I never did, so I would think they wouldn't either.

I work in a hospital 1-2 days per month as a dental asst and we are required to change into their scrubs when we enter the or and then change out of them when we leave the floor.The have a company that picks them up daily and washes them.The scrubs are color coded so each dept has a different color.Shelley

Ditto what Shelley said for my DH (except that he is a radiation physicist not a dental asst!).
The policy is the same for ALL the hospital he works for.

I always thought the whole point of scrubs was to be able to change often into something easy and fresh that could be laundered often and well. Silly me.

Shows like Oprah also promote the practice by showing that Oz character running around in his scrubs.

I used to have to wear white uniforms, white nylons, white shoes......I worked in ICU and ER and there is no way I would have ever worn the same clothes the next day. I went in thru the downstairs and put the clothes in a special hamper.
Now it is difficult to tell the licensed personnel from the other hospital staff.
(I must be getting old.)

I hope and doubt that this is normal for most hospitals,but having my DH suffer a nasty bout of C Diff this past spring....short of sterilizing almost everything that a C Diff patient comes in contact with,it's very difficult to control and treat.DH was treated at home...they didn't want him near any hospitals if at all possible...I wore masks and gloves...sterilized everything it was possible to do...He used his own bathroom etc...he was still bedridden for a month!

I can't imagine any health personnel not washing their scrubs on a daily basis, but I've seen lab coats being worn more than once. Very bad practice in today's world.

I don't know if I believe that or not. I think the lack of handwashing is the bigger culprit. See it all the time, especially with mds.

I forgot to add that there are people walking around in stores, grocery stores, etc...with c-diff, MRSA, VRE. All they have to do is touch a cart or something you touch and then you rub your eye, mouth or nose and you can become infected with it. MRSA is in a lot of our patient's noses. More and more are becoming carriers and it's not going to get any better. Some days I go to work and nearly half the floor is in isolation for MRSA, VRE and C-diff. These people are in the community wherever you go.

I would think medical personnel would want to change scrubs before they left their work premises to protect themselves as well as patients. Our hospitals screen everyone that is spending one night in hospital. They do a special swab for super bugs.

I don't know if you can keep the super bugs out of hospitals and our homes. Hygene practices is our only hope.
Jean

Colored scrubs are going to be chlorine bleached, which is apparently the only thing that kills the c. diff.

We have a neighbor couple - she is a retired RN, he has been on dialysis for several years. He was in the hospital this summer with an infection that went to his heart. He also had an infection in the fistula in his arm where the dialysis needle goes. A nurse was changing a dressing on it WITHOUT GLOVES!!! Wife read her the riot act.

When my DH was in the hospital for the umpteenth time this summer, a nurse handed him his pills, in her hand, WITHOUT GLOVES!!! He refused to take them and asked her to bring them in a paper cup.

The neighbor wife is also a writer for nursing magazines. She has just published a lengthy article about hospital procedures with regard to infections.

This is a wonderful local hospital with glove dispensers and anti-bacterial soap dispensers everywhere.............

The hospital i work in which is in a small community often has many many people in isolation for MRSA or C-diff as well. It is extremely common. C-diff is spread by spores so it is So easy to catch, and only a certain concentration of bleach will kill it. We had a guy last year he had it so bad, he would get explosive diarrhea all over the walls and everything. They tried everything to cure him, fecal transplants from his son, probiotics, medications..but he died from it. Scary.
Many of the nurses all over are pigs too. i watch them daily cough into their hands, blow their noses, then go into a patient room, not wear gloves, etc.. it is disgusting. On the other hand, my niece who is a nurse is extremely diligent in hand washing etc... you would never get sick from her- that is for sure. I remember when my mom was a patient in a major famous hospital after having a brain aneurysm and she was in ICU in critical condition and there was this gross nurse who kept touching her hair and wiping her nose, and then she would drain the catheter without gloves, and then started to open her feeding tube. I said stop right now. You are not touching that until you wash your hands, and she was MAD at me, but c'mon.. common sense. I called the infection control nurse and told her to come sit on the floor and watch and she was horrified. Needless to say, she longer works there. I cannot even imagine the bugs that were probably on her scrubs. ewww. At Mayo clinic this summer i was in ICU for 7 days, and they were immpecably clean.

I work 40 hrs in one hospital and 20 in another. My husband was in a 3rd one for 2 days this week. I have really paid attention to the hand hygiene this week!!
At hospital #1, I was on a Infection Control committee doing a special mission last year, secretly observing and documenting different departments and their habits. I found: Nurses starting IV's w/o gloves routinely in ER. Floor staff were much better.
At hosp #2 (VA) the nursing, dietary & houskeeping staff never neglect to wear gloves, and always use alcohol foam. Their policy is "Foam in, foam out" each room, and each patient is swabbed for MRSA at each visit, transfer from unit and discharge. Our infection control policy states that the alcohol foam is the most effective disinfectant EXCEPT for C-Diff infections, which requires soap and water.
At hosp #1 I process micro reports and am amazed at the prevelance of MRSA in the community. Most are cultures from college students, children, toddlers and adults on the "outside". Approximatly 50% of the positive staph cultures were MRSA. Makes you think twice about taking antibiotics for everything, huh!
At the hospital w/ DH this week, I observed all personel using the foam habitually, even the person who came in and did not even touch him or anything else in room!
The wearing of gloves is intended for the safety of the healthcare worker, those gloves are not sterile, therefore not anything more than a barrier to protect the worker.
I do get antsy seeing the IV's started without them, from both sides of the situation!

No matter what the personnel wear....hospitals are the most dangerous places as far as infections. That's one of the reasons you don't want to stay there very long.
No hospital can be kept absolutely sterile. I believe the operating suite is the only area that can be assumed to be sterile...and, my husband got a life-threatening staph infection from in there.

Gosh, it just seems like a total lack of common sense, wearing the same clothes over and over. I think the trendy scrubs are a bad fashion statement to begin with and then to wear them without washing? Ew.

When I worked at the vet's office, some days I would come home and take off my clothes and toss them into the washer before I even got in the house, I felt so germy and I didn't want to infect my own pets, even though they'd been vaccinated. Luckily, our laundry room was in a little room on the back of the house and we had a privacy fence. :)

I work in an ER and let me say that my hands are raw from all the handwashing I do. The last thing I need is to pick up something from work and bring it home. I wish my hospital had a laundry service for scrubs. What I end up doing is taking off my shoes in my outside hallway when I get home and the scrubs go immediately into a separate hamper just for my scrubs. However...I am guilty of starting a few IVs without gloving up first in an emergency.But once the IV is in the vein I always glove up before I proceed.

Wow - that is some scary stuff!

Being a nurse in the ICU, I see so many patients with C-Diff, MRSA and VRE. Those patients are put into isolation and special gowns must be worn over our scrubs to prevent the spread of these bugs. I have never seen any of my coworkers rewear their scrubs.. in fact, most of us change before we go home to prevent carrying these germs to our families.