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Coronavirus – safeguarding your facility

There’s been a lot of opinion, a bit of hype, and what we’d call ‘pre-panic’ about the Coronavirus in the news. The latest today is that a global pandemic is inevitable, and that it’s a question of WHEN not IF the pandemic will be widespread in Australia.

What can you do to protect your customers, staff, residents and guests?

Apart from adhering to standard safe-hygiene practices (thorough and regular hand washing, using alcohol-based hand sanitiser), and standard site cleaning practices, how can you prevent your facility or venue from become a hotbed of virus transmission?

One of the most important aspects of infection control is sanitising common touch points. Light switches, lift buttons, door handles, hand rails, door frames… all of the places where fingers can transfer bacteria and viruses. At this stage we don’t know exactly how long the NOVA Coronavirus will live on hard and soft surfaces (both dry and wet), which means that stringent touch point hygiene protocols should be put in place, particularly in venues where vulnerable populations are found.

So what does that mean? At a minimum, if you believe your facility is at risk, you should contact us to institute regular infection control cleans. This is generally beyond the standard scope of works as it involves specific chemicals to sanitise surfaces (beyond the usual disinfectants such as chlorfoam or bleach), utilising disposable cleaning materials, and an increased frequency of touch point cleaning. We’re working with most of our aged care clients to ensure we have the correct protocols in place. If you’d like to discuss this with us, please contact your Contracts Manager, or our National Operations Manager Tony, to have a chat. Feel free to call him on 0417 349 255.

We can conduct a complete audit of your site to determine which touch points need to be sanitised and at which frequency. In this way, you can work towards preventing an outbreak, or at the very least containing the breadth of transmission should one occur. This is a free service we offer to everyone – you don’t have to be an existing client to take this up. Please get in touch if you’d like more info.

Tags: aged care, child care, coronavirus, healthcare, infection control, prevention