Importance of Personal Hygiene in a Pharmacy Workplace

Maintaining a comfortable environment in which all employees can work in is an importantpoor hygiene from employees can affect the overall performance of a team or impact on their colleagues and other people, particularly patients, with whom an individual comes in to contact.

Keeping clean is essential for good health; poor hygiene can cause skin complaints, unpleasant smells and bacterial or parasitic infections; poor dental care can also give rise to bad breath. Unwashed clothes are often a source of undesirable smells.

Staff should come work having attended to their personal hygiene each day with clean clothes and hair and free from unpleasant odours.

Clean uniform should be worn each day and replaced if it becomes soiled during a shift.

Why should we pay attention to keep workplace/pharmacy environment clean?

Keeping work environment clean reduces workplace hazards and help get a job done safely and properly. Unhygienic environment can frequently contribute to accidents by hiding hazards that cause injuries. If the sight of paper, debris, clutter and spills is accepted as normal, then other more serious health and safety hazards may be taken for granted.

Housekeeping is not just cleanliness. It includes keeping work areas neat and orderly; maintaining halls and floors free of slip and trip hazards; and removing of waste materials (e.g., paper, cardboard) and other fire hazards from work areas. It also requires paying attention to important details such as the layout of the whole workplace, aisle marking, the adequacy of storage facilities, and maintenance. Good housekeeping is also a basic part of accident and fire prevention.

What is the purpose of keeping pharmacy clean?

Unhygienic and unclean work environment can be a cause of accidents, such as:

• Tripping over loose objects on floors, stairs and platforms
• Being hit by falling objects
• Slipping on greasy, wet or dirty surfaces
• Striking against projecting, poorly stacked items or misplaced material
• Cutting, puncturing, or tearing the skin of hands or other parts of the body on projecting nails, wire or steel strapping

To avoid these hazards, a workplace must “maintain” order throughout a workday.

What are some benefits of keeping pharmacy environment clean?

Effective cleanliness at a workplace results in:

• Reduced handling to ease the flow of materials
• Fewer tripping and slipping accidents in clutter-free and spill-free work areas
• Decreased fire hazards
• Lower worker exposures to hazardous substances (e.g. dusts, vapours)
• Better control of tools and materials, including inventory and supplies
• More efficient equipment cleanup and maintenance
• Better hygienic conditions leading to improved health
• More effective use of space
• Reduced property damage by improving preventive maintenance
• Less janitorial work
• Improved morale
• Improved productivity (tools and materials will be easy to find)

How do I plan a good work environment program in my HBS pharmacy?

A hygienic program plans and manages the orderly storage and movement of materials from point of entry to exit. It includes a material flow plan to ensure minimal handling. The plan also ensures that work areas are not used as storage areas by having workers move materials to and from work areas as needed. Part of the plan could include investing in extra bins and more frequent disposal.

The costs of this investment could be offset by the elimination of repeated handling of the same material and more effective use of the workers’ time. Often, ineffective or insufficient storage planning results in materials being handled and stored in hazardous ways. Knowing the plant layout and the movement of materials throughout the workplace can help plan work procedures.

Worker training is an essential part of any hygienic and risk free program. Workers need to know how to work safely with the products they use. They also need to know how to protect other workers such as by posting signs (e.g., “Wet – Slippery Floor”) and reporting any unusual conditions.

A clean enironment order is “maintained” not “achieved.” Cleaning and organization must be done regularly, not just at the end of the shift. Integrating housekeeping into jobs can help ensure this is done. A good housekeeping program identifies and assigns responsibilities for the following:

• Clean up during the shift
• Day-to-day cleanup
• Waste disposal
• Removal of unused materials
• Inspection to ensure cleanup is complete

Do not forget out-of-the-way places such as shelves, basements, sheds, and boiler rooms that would otherwise be overlooked. The orderly arrangement of operations, tools, equipment and supplies is an important part of keeping a pharmacy clean.