Dispensing with the negatives
Metsä Tissue relays an uncomfortable situation that shows the right product and a little training can go a long way.
All manufacturers of washroom products do their best to provide good products. After all, no one would get very far if they said: “Here’s a product that’s not very good – how many would you like?”
However, Mark Dewick, Metsä Tissue Sales Director for the UK & Ireland, added: “What they do not always take into account is the experience, priority and ethos of the people who use those products. The consequences of getting this wrong in a hospital environment include higher consumable costs, higher resource costs and the risk of infection for patients and staff alike.”
For some first-hand experience, one of Metsä Tissue’s staff recently experienced a stay in an NHS hospital. The medical service was very good and all went well, until she got to the washroom.
The washroom featured a twin toilet roll holder. One roll was finished, so being something of an industry expert, she attempted to access the second roll. Unfortunately, the mechanism was jammed. Having just had surgery – it was after all a surgical ward – the patient could not apply much force to the problem, but tried her hardest under the circumstances to slide the mechanism as appropriate. She was unable to.
Blocking up the system
Presented with this dilemma, she was left with no choice but to ‘misuse a hand towel’. This was despite the signs around the small bathroom unit saying ‘please do not dispose of
hand towels down the toilet’. Clearly, this had been a problem for the hospital previously, but what’s a girl to do?
So, once ablutions had been performed, the patient exited the bathroom and advised the ward sister of the problem, who replied: “Oh yes, it’s been like that for months. Hang on, I’ll get a new roll from store.”
The dispenser was locked and the key was only held by the organisation’s FM company, and they had already completed their cleaning round for the day. So, the new roll was placed on top of the dispenser, where it stayed all day, open to bacteria, able to fall on the floor and be handled by all patients using the facilities.
With fresh surgical wounds and signs across the hospital about an outbreak of the Norovirus they were experiencing, as well as other more general cold and flu bugs, this was all far from ideal. In addition, with a loose roll, consumption control goes out of the window and consumable costs go through the roof.
When the FM staff did their rounds early the next day, they appraised the situation, opened the dispenser, placed the ‘part roll’ in it, and locked it again. They were probably thinking that ‘the other roll is still there so there should be plenty of toilet roll to last the day’.
And so, the next day, the whole story began again. As indicated by the ward sister, this had been ongoing for some time.
If the patient in this case had not been ‘an industry expert’, the washroom users would probably have gone on using hand towels all day and blocked the plumbing. During the lifecycle of this situation, this has probably happened many times. With a little bit of industry knowledge, the problem can be identified, but still not resolved.
So, a poor experience all round, but what is the solution? 36 | DISPOSABLES
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