| For setting up your sick room, I'll let the orginal author of this thread from ole yeller, the poster formerly known as anon_22, our own SusanC, guide you through this. I feel at this time of year, it is important to consider such a room, even for the sick child home from school. While you wouldn't go to this extreme for a child sick at home, you would want to consider how you would deal with the sick SIP/JAH.
anon_22 - at 19:01
There doesn't seem to be a lot of discussion on preparing a room in case someone in your family comes down with the virus. Guidelines are available here http://www.fluwikie.... but please feel free to share your ideas or problems that you have encountered while planning this.
I have a room on top of the garage that has a separate entrance from the street. A flight of stairs from this entrance goes up to the landing where there is a bathroom (shower) immediately next to this bedroom. At the bottom of the stairs there is another door to the garage through which at the back you can exit to a small yard that is not part of the main garden. This whole setup is connected to the main house via a hallway and another door.
The reason why I explain all this is that I want to demonstrate how to design the space to create different levels of infection control, including a one-way system if someone is sick and a carer has to go in and out of the room and disinfect properly before returning to the main part of the house.
The carer goes in through the internal door from the main house, closes that door, and uses the hallway as changing area to put on whatever PPE needed. This may be some old clothes covered with apron, shower cap, gloves and mask. Also either disposable shoe covers or change into wellies (rubber boots).
For higher level of protection, I would use long-sleeve surgical gowns (these can be home-made) that tie at the back plus plastic apron. Use duct tape to seal the wrists of the gloves. Use two pairs of gloves if available.
It is important before entering the room to make sure that the other set of doors are closed ie at any point, there is at least one closed door between the patient area and the living quarters. If you don't have 2 sets of doors, use plastic sheets to create an additional barrier.
The room that I have is long and so it can be separated into two areas. The patient can sleep on a bed at the far end. This area is semi-partitioned with the use of plastic sheet/shower curtain. Behind this, next to the bed, you would need to put basins for disinfection and all the paraphernalia that one would normally need if someone is ill/bored.
The big challenge in this case is toilet facilities. Because the bathroom in this case is on the outside, I want to reserve that for cleaning/disinfection purposes. I tried to come up with different ideas to safely deal with waste, and the best so far is to get a chemical toilet from caravan companies. The neat(!) thing about this is that it has an enclosed compartment that receives waste. You can disconnect the lower portion as a fully enlosed container. If you put in disinfectant eg bleach ahead of time, then removing and disposing of that waste is not going to be hazardous.
The reason why it is better to partition the room, apart from the privacy issue, is that if the carer is to stay in for any length of time, any barrier would improve protection.
Any article/clothing from the room is to be disinfected with bleach. The easiest way for laundry is to get the biggest bucket you can find and fill it to half with diluted bleach. You can keep it just outside the room, in this case in the bathroom, so that the stuff goes straight in soon as you leave the room. That way, you are only handling contaminated laundry when still fully protected.
Before leaving the room, the carer should wash and disinfect the outer pair of gloves, remove and dispose of them, spray disinfectant on the inner gloves before opening the door. Once outside, close door immediately. Just outside the room, you can put a tray with a folded bath-towel or large cloth soaked with bleach. As the carer leaves, he should step on this and rub the bottom of the wellies vigorously. If using disposable shoe covers, step on the bleach, remove the covers and dispose of them.
Wash and disinfect remaining gloves. Take off apron and put immediately into wastebin, making sure that the bin closes completely. Take off gown and put into laundry bleach bucket. Wash and disinfect gloves again.
Now the carer is ready to leave. In this instance, he can exit through the garage door, making sure to touch only the door handles and nothing else. These can be disinfected later.
Walk through the garage and out the back. On the outside, prepare a shallow basin of bleach as footbath and plastic flip-flops (sandals). If wearing wellies, step into the basin and take off the wellies. Step out and put on flip-flops. Wash and disinfect gloves again. Take off glove, wash and disinfect hands.
Take off and dispose of mask and cap, taking care to not touch the outside of mask.
Wash and disinfect hands. |
