Management of tubes, lines and drains

Intensive nursing often means taking care of patients that have a multitude of lines attached to them (Figure 1). Whether that be intravenous catheters, wound drains or feeding tubes, it is important to bear in mind that any extra tube or drain on a patient is another entry point for bacteria to multiply. Hospital acquired infections account for up to 40% of increased length of stays for patients in the intensive care unit (Ershova et al, 2018); and nosocomial infections increase morbidity and mortality as well as the length of stay in hospitals and in turn will in-crease cost to the client. It has been shown that good hygiene and aseptic techniques in nursing can improve infection rates by up to 40% in some studies (Mukhopadhyay, 2018).

With multidrug resistant bacteria on the rise, and an ever-limited choice of antibiotics, it has never been more important to focus on infection control in practice. With every antimicrobial available there is documented resistance to it, and antimicrobial resistance has led to the increase in morbidity and mortality from infectious conditions (Reygaert, 2018). Infection control is everyone's responsibility. Veterinary nurses are likely to be in more direct contact with patients than veterinary surgeons — this has been shown in human medicine where on average 67% of nurses spent over 20 minutes with some patients compared with 29% of doctors (English et al, 2018). With this in mind, veterinary nurses should make every effort to maintain gold standard hygiene.