Why is proper handwashing and disinfecting important when entering or finishing in the lab environment?

Answer 1

The most important reason is the very high risk of contamination. Most people seem to assume that sterile environments are self maintaining. Because it is a sterile environment its assumed that contaminants cannot live in those type of habitats, when in all actuality its a perfect breeding ground for many different types of germs and bacteria due to how clean it really is.

For instance, you come to work after doing dishes at home before you left. Before or after those dishes you probably ate breakfast. Maybe you stopped for gas on the way. Before you come into work, you've touched the dishwasher handle, dirty dishes, which it might have been dishes from that morning and they may have been thoroughly rinsed, in which case you probably touched the faucet, your shoes, the doorknob, the car handle, the steering wheel, the shifter, most likely money of whatever denomination, etc. The most unsanitary thing you touch everyday is money and your cell phone, believe it or not. Now you get to work and forget to sanitize your hands. The hands are the most unsanitary part on the body due to the transaction between anything you come into physical contact with. You walk into your sterile environment, which most of the time the sterile environment is so sterile due to the temperature. If you have been inside a lab or hospital its always cold. That's to keep contaminants such as germs, bacteria, viruses, infections, etc, anything that can jeopardize your health or someone else's health, away and out of the surroundings. These contaminants have a hard time surviving in colder temperature's, but some of these contaminants evolve and adapt to these situations. A perfect example of adaptation with contaminants is staph infection. Usually staff is caught at hospital, or where lots of people come into contact with each other and the germs that they carry get left behind and survive and breed and adapt and eventually infect or contaminate.

Basically a sterile environment once a contaminant gets past the barrier and is able to find a way to survive, it will reproduce and give birth to a super contaminant that can survive harsher climates, that can become more of a threat and create sicknesses way more dangerous than its predecessor and then we will have a outbreak waiting to happen with no protection against it, to protect ourselves. We come into contact with molds and bacterias, we inhale germs and poisons and all types of unseen free radicals, and then wonder why, we aren't sick, but have no energy or feel sluggish or unproductive. This is exactly the reason.

Cleanliness and sterilization are not just good practices for the work environment, but for the home and family environment as well. Not only to protect ourselves, but the ones love and/or care about swell. There are people out there who count on people like us who have worked or still do work in these sterile environments, to not only make sure they don't get sick or ill or catch a virus or infection, from a product that we are responsible for making sure decontamination is 100%, but some of these peoples lives are on the line, and they 're counting on us to help save them. All it takes is touching that one thing, a shoe, a cell phone, whatever, and its all downhill from there. People get trapped in a danger zone of illness and we are responsible for it, though we might never even find out that we are the ones At Fault for certain situations of an-others illness, but your lack of doing your duty might just backfire and instead of someone else being the victim from your lack of simply washing your hands and being clean, might just take a turn for the worst and you could become the victim of yourself.