DOHA: The Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) will launch on Monday its fifth hand hygiene campaign this year under the slogan “Combat antimicrobial resistance, commit to hand hygiene.”
Coinciding with the annual International Hand Hygiene Day which is observed on May 5, the campaign will include lectures and distribution of brochures and booklets aimed at raising awareness among people on the importance of hand hygiene and showing them the best ways to wash hands.
Dr Duria Al Qahtani, Director of Performance Improvement at PHCC, said the campaign will target all segments of society and will be conducted at 21 health centres all over the country. The campaign will be attended by students and health centre visitors, doctors, nurses and staff.
PHCC has set strategies and plans to combat the microbes that have developed resistance, to prevent their transfer in homes and workplaces and the society as a whole and this could not be done without raising people’s awareness, she said.
Dr Ahmad Hashim, coordinator of risk management at the PHCC, said prevention is the best way to save people from infection and primary healthcare providers have the responsibility to raise awareness of the people and prevent them from infections.
Primary healthcare providers have the responsibility to raise awareness among people on how to protect themselves from diseases and encourage them to acquire the habit of hand hygiene to reduce the rates of infection, said Dr Hashim.
Many studies and independent researches around the world found a relation between hand hygiene of those involved in primary healthcare and the spread of communicable diseases through hospitals and health centres, he added.
“Therefore, washing hands has become mandatory in primary healthcare centres and part of the regulations. The PHCC insists on all staff to be committed to hand hygiene as the first step to the protection of people’s health,” he said, adding the World Health Organisation has designated a day to raise awareness on the importance of hand hygiene.
Dr Usman Al Muamini of PHCC said having clean and healthy skin is the body’s first line of defence from diseases, “that’s why we always recommend to everyone who visits the health centre to wash hands because not doing this may lead to other kinds of diseases. If there is no cleanliness today, there will be no recovery tomorrow. We have to spread awareness than spread bacteria.”
The Peninsula
