How To Protect Yourself When Visiting The Hospital
You go to the hospital when you are sick, or to visit a friend or family member when they are sick or getting surgery. Maybe you go to the doctor’s office, rather than the ER, but either way, you risk getting sicker, or catching something in the air, whenever you go. Is that reason enough to avoid going to the doctor?
If people never went to the doctor or the hospital more people would most likely be dead right now, so the risk of sickness caught in the hospital is far lesser than what could happen to you healthwise anywhere else. But how can you protect yourself at least a little bit when it’s time for an appointment, ER visit, or you need to see someone in the hospital?
Vesicular stomatitis virus/CDC
Know What Season It Is
When flu season comes around it doesn’t matter where you go when you leave your home, hospital or grocery store, you run the risk of getting sick, unless you take some precautions ahead of time. The first one to take is to get your flu shot. While you may come across a strain that differs from the ones in your shot, it still helps give you a better chance of not getting sick.
You also want to make sure that you are staying clear of people that may be sick, so don’t sit right next to the person coughing and blowing their nose in the waiting room. Bring some vitamin drop with you too, to help keep your immunity up.
Keep Your Hands Washed
Even more importantly is to keep your hands clean. When you visit the hospital, whether it’s cold and flu season or not, you should brings some hand sanitizer with you and wash your hands with it, or the traditional way, after you touch doorknobs or anything else. Better safe than sorry.
Clean hands are one of the best ways to keep from spreading germs, and from getting germs. Make sure you use warmer water and soap, and scrub up good! Cold water and no soap aren’t going to do anything for washing away those germs before they get into your system.
Don’t Live In Fear
Sure, there are risks of medical waste being improperly disposed of, which can lead to risk for patients, visitors, and medical staff. You risk catching colds and flu, and other airborne illnesses. However, what you risk by avoiding the doctor or the hospital can be far greater.
Just because you might get sick is no reason to avoid visiting grandma in the hospital, especially if it might be the last time you see her. The flu is no reason to skip a trip to the doctor because of pains you’ve been having that could turn out to be nothing, or could be a sign of something major.
Just breath easy, keep your hands washed, and have a little faith that even if you get a cold it won’t last forever!
Guest Author: Lolita Di
Image/CDC
