POLISHING OF FLOORS IN HOSPITALS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 204, 26 May 1938, Page 12

POLISHING OF FLOORS IN HOSPITALS

Board Decides Practice

Must Cease

“MENACE TO LIFE AND LIMB”

Dominion Special Service,

Christchurch, May 25.

The polishing of floors in wards and corridors of the Christchurch Public Hospital is to cease forthwith. A motion adopted at a meeting of the North Canterbury Hospital Board to-day, laid down this ruling, members agreeing that the highly-polished surfaces throughout the institution were a danger to patients and to visitors. The same ruling will apply to all hospitals under the board’s care. “They’re a menace to life and limb,” said Mrs. I. Parlane, who complained that floors in wards and corridors were kept in too high a state of polish. In one place, she said, there was a notice, “beware of the slippery floors,” but that place was traversed constantly by out-patients who should not be subjected to the strain it involved. In the nursed home junior nurses put a lot of time and energy into polishing floors, but if they refrained from doing so they would get about lightly and more quickly. Their duties were arduous enough without adding the polishing of these floors and risking the danger of “going for a -skate.” Mrs. Parlane moved that polishing be done away with, and that, if practicable, rubber flooring be introduced. Mrs. D. E. MacFarlane seconded her motion.

“I support the motion feelingly,” said Mr. W. P. Spencer. “At first I got the wind up properly and had to walk round walls to avoid slipping. I was advised to wear rubber soles and heels and had to go to the expense of getting them. Now I walk in safety and confidence.” Mr. Spencer said he himself had been responsible for improvements in the main corridor. He had been told that on many occasions patients had fallen on .the slippery floors. He could not understand why they should be so slippery and dangerous. Mr. H. H. Holland, chairman of the hospital committee, said the committee had been going into this matter for some time. Mechanical polishers had been given a trial to spread the polish more evenly. Mrs. Parlane’s motion was carried, ruling that polishing cease forthwith, and that the hospital committee be asked to investigate the practicability of rubber flooring.