Cleaning Hands

Please DO NOT Burn Your Hands, following the technique stated HERE.

This was a comment I placed below an article. 

Following is an extension of my blog activity.

One does not have to go paranoid about keeping clean hands.

Your hands are never sterile of bacteria.

Hands get colonized with bacteria every half an hour from your own "domesticated" or resident non pathogenic bacteria living on the surface and the root of the hairs.

They actually protect your hands from pathogenic bacteria invading and colonizing.

By wearing gloves one eliminates the risk of contaminating of a wound from your own possible carrier pathogens.

Ideally even a surgeon has to change gloves every half to one hour while operating.

By washing and scrubbing one gets rid of the foreign bacteria that are present in the contaminated food.

So the bottom line is to make sure one buys them from hygienic sources.

Other is to cook them before eating.

Fresh food (uncooked) is never free of bacteria one does not have to cook your hands; 

instead cook the food.

I never get involved in cooking since, with fish tanks and the dog my hands are never free of possible contamination.

I have to handle food that day is off for the fish and the dog. 

I consider the fridge-freezers are the most contaminated articles in yur house if it is jammed pack.

Minimum food in it cooked or uncooked is the safety valve.

I let my wife do the honours and bring fast food as a supplement.

Before I buy fast food I do a survey of how the food is handled and dished out and if I see any wrong practises, I never visit that place.

Food handling is a special art for the hospitality trade.

It is the job of the Public Health Inspectors to visit them regularly BUT our guys/girls visit them to take BRIBES from the vendors.

To get rid of hepatitis virus one has to boil for minimum of half an our.

HIV virus is inactivated by simple soap and water BUT kissing can transmit it apart from SEX whatever one's orientation is.

There was article stating to use HOT Water (temperature is immaterial) clean hands which is wrong.

Both hot water and very cold water can BURN your hands which is a serious injury for CHILDREN and adults.

40 years ago there wasnt a single place one could buy clean food in CEYLON.

Over the years we became immune to all the bugs.

I have no solution to this problem of "proper washing of hands (or any other article or body part").

I have to thank both Professor Barkumarakulasuriya and Professor Aluvihare for training as Medical Students and the etiquette of theatre practice.

Bar Kum wanted me to take surgical photographs of his cases, which I enjoyed very much.

APR (Athe Paya Rudawa after Surgery or Per Rectal Anjuna we renamed him no sooner he returned from UK) had SICU for his critical cases.

SICU was a new concept only Colombo General had a unit then.

Renal Unit was not established.

The technique I learned was useful when I started doing NEONATAL WORK in UK.

Then I realized I would be spending my time washing hands most of my waking life instead of sleeping like a log.

I decided to give up both surgery and Neonatology (We we the pioneers of Ventilators in UK then, starting with Baby Bellings and more sophisticated ventilators later).

Back at home under "Sirimawo and NM", I used to do postmortems with bare hands since even, if I wore two pairs of Cheap Chinese gloves, body fluids (no oozing blood but clotted blood in cadavers) would seep through them and stain my nails specially both index fingers.

I thought this was not a joke with Cholera was endemic in Jaffna then (brought from India).

I developed my own technique using surgical instruments properly sterilized under my ONLY pharmacist's scrutiny.

Nobody had ever used them before me in the District Hospital I worked all instruments coming from UK.

Hospital was known as a punishment station (unfortunately my first appointment) and was occupied by J.V.P in 1970/71.

Within a month only other medical man left to get married, (Thankfully I had a RMP who loved PP by the side which I encouraged to offload my patients) and I was all alone in three-man station.

Within five months I was the most unwanted man in the district since I was catching one by one all the Sinhala Buddhist clerk, food supplier, chief attendant, security guard and rogue nurses.

I could trust only three out of over 100 staff, the midwife, the pharmacist and the RMP, the last two were Tamil gentlemen.

I made an easy exist to the Department Pathology, University (That was intended as a punishment, since I begged the Deputy Director, never to send me to Pathology under Professor Tennakoon) from where I started climbing UP.

I had working relationship with my professor (who wanted me to do renal biopsies with only one Siverman Biopsy Needle) and one day watching me doing the dissection of the left overs (he never gave the Heart and the Kidneys) without gloves;

"What the Hell You Do, without gloves with Hepatitis B (Australia Antigen and Hepatitis B were current news then) epidemic".

I told him my reasons (Cheap Quality Chinese Gloves) and he made sure all our gloves for the department were imported from UK.

His final say was "Never Mind, you use your OWN technique BUT wear gloves in my department".

Within a year he treated me better than his sons.

The sons ONLY got distinction in English.

My sons are lazy, he used to tell me.

He had three heart attacks and the reason was heavy smoking (last two were after he quit smoking).

I stop smoking having seen him in critical care, latter stages of his life.

He wanted only books to read, that also detective ones.

He used to hit the films, the first day.

Both reading (especially critical scientific articles) and films, I am no different to him.

Thanks to him, I stopped smoking on my own volition, the day I stepped foot on United Kingdom.

I smoked only once on the day of my father's (not my mother) funeral.

Mind you he was a heavy smoker and I changed him to good cigars (he had multiple strokes) over time brought from UK.