Should I be cleaning my healthcare shower?

The cleaning of showers and accessories can be time consuming and costly. Jonathan Waggott DipM, MCIM, from Jonathan Waggott & Associates explores the options available to address these issues.

Regular flushing of showers can help to reduce the risk of pathogens such as legionellae but many hospitals know that in practice this can be difficult to both action and monitor. So, perhaps it might now be time for healthcare providers to consider the recent trend towards using service companies that can provide, replace and recycle these components every few months rather than trying to remove, disinfect and re-fit these items themselves? 

The very first showers were neither indoor structures nor man-made but were common natural formations: waterfalls. The falling water rinsed the bathers completely clean and was more efficient than bathing in a traditional basin, which required manual transport of both fresh and waste water. 

Ancient people began to reproduce these natural phenomena by pouring jugs of water, often very cold, over themselves after washing. There has been evidence of early upper class Egyptian and Mesopotamians having indoor shower rooms where servants would bathe them in the privacy of their own homes. However, these were rudimentary by modern standards, having rudimentary drainage systems and water was carried, not pumped, into the room. The ancient Greeks were the first people to have real showers. 

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