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Question from a support worker - Weesidney - 06-13-2022
First off, thank you for accepting my request to join the forum.
I started a new career as a support worker and we have a person who uses a VPAP machine, in the morning support staff are not allowed to enter this person’s house until 2 hours have passed after the machine is switched off. Could anyone enlighten me as to why this might be? Thank you
RE: Question from a support worker - Crimson Nape - 06-13-2022
Hi Weesidney! -
Who implemented that rule, the patient or your group director? Currently, my answer is, I don't have a clue.
- Red
RE: Question from a support worker - pholynyk - 06-13-2022
The only clue I can give is that when I had an overnight stay in hospital in October '20 (covid time!) the nurses were told to do full PPE if I was using my machine. Apparently the volume of air vented contains a lot of aerosols which may or may not contain virus.
So waiting for two hours lets the aerosols settle out? idk
RE: Question from a support worker - hh9797 - 06-13-2022
(06-13-2022, 04:56 PM)pholynyk Wrote: So waiting for two hours lets the aerosols settle out? idk
That is pretty likely, I work in a hospital collecting the needle containers from rooms and rooms where a treatment required aerosols the room required at least 2 hours before anyone was allowed to enter it without a N95 mask and if you did enter it you had to wear an N95 mask for 2 hours after you left said room. I didn't personally ask the reason why I just went "ok, that just means that I can not check those containers if they need changed out or not and will just check them next service", but yeah even EVS (the housekeepers who clean the rooms) would have to wait 2 hours before they could clean the room, so odds are your guess is correct seeing as the time they are saying they are restricted and the time rooms with aerosol treatments match up. (They had zero problem allowing people to go into any old CoVid room without waiting two hours, it was just the rooms that used aerosol treatments that 2 hour wait time was enforced)
RE: Question from a support worker - Weesidney - 06-15-2022
Thanks for the information guys, during the night we have to wear full ppe if we enter the house, the 2 hour instructions came from a respiratory nurse.
RE: Question from a support worker - cathyf - 06-16-2022
Droplets fall, but aerosols will float around for days. (The smallest virus that infects humans, parvovirus B19 -- which causes Fifth Disease -- is incredibly virulently contagious because those aerosols will float around in the air for up to two weeks!)
At the college where I work, the newest building that we have built in 2013 has a modern ventilation system and it does a 100% exchange of air every 10 minutes. (Before the CCPv, it was set to exchange every 15 minutes. They cranked it maximum in 2020.) The hospitals that you are talking about are probably about the same -- 10-20 minutes. So two hours is ridiculously excessive.
For a random patient's normal house, though, two hours is probably totally inadequate.