The nurse, Jeff Johnson, provided more than 100 photos of dirty beds to WNCN.
When WNCN approached the hospital about the issue, J. West Paul, MD, PhD, WakeMed’s senior vice president and chief quality and medical staff officer, said, “To our knowledge, patients have not been placed in those beds.”
However, he agreed dirty beds are an issue at WakeMed and acknowledged that the hospital has had a task force in place working on the problem since 2015.
Dr. Paul said that beds at WakeMed are taken apart once a month for a thorough cleaning and are also cleaned in between use by patients.
“We have implemented several systems before and during this employee’s tenure, that terminally cleans the beds and checks at least three times between each patient to make sure they’re appropriately cleaned,” Dr. Paul told the news crew.
He acknowledged the hospital is not perfect, but said, “we’re striving for it, and we’re going to get there.”
More articles on patient safety:
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Electronic hand hygiene-monitoring system cut MRSA HAI rates by 42 percent
Cleaning the hospital ‘grey zone’ lowers infection risk
