Clean Air Needed in Hospital and Care Settings Now

One of Supporting Healthcare Heroes UK’s (SHH-UK) aims is to advocate for improvements in indoor air quality in hospital and care establishments. Given the focus on handwashing as a way of preventing the transmission of covid by Government and public health bodies you might wonder why we want to achieve this. The answer is quite simple. Covid is airborne.

Covid, and other infectious diseases, are spread by airborne aerosols. One of the key ways to prevent their transmission is by improving air quality and using well-fitting respiratory masks. Find out more by reading the blogs by our infection protection and control adviser, Dr Evonne Curran (@EvonneTCurran) which can be found here. However, if you’re only going to read one of her blogs, make it this one which provides the evidence that covid is airborne.

Research has shown that each covid reinfection increases the risk of long-term sequalae (Al-Aly et al. 2022) with health and social care workers having amongst the highest prevalence of long Covid (Office for National Statistics). As a charity we are aware of the personal cost of Long Covid. We are keen to do everything we can to raise awareness and prevent the numbers of people with Long Covid increasing.

Long Covid also has an impact on society as a whole – for example, there are less people of working age in paid employment. If you’d like to find out more about this, the economic impact of Long Covid was discussed in a recent report.

What can you do to help us meet this objective?

Firstly, if you haven’t done so already, please sign the petition calling for the introduction of new air quality standards and rules in health and social care settings. Please also ask your friends and family to do so too.

Secondly, join in with the ‘Clean Air In Healthcare’ selfie campaign being launched today (7th May). Taking part in this campaign involves:

  • Taking a selfie holding up a sign with the hashtags #CleanAirInHealthcare and/or #CleanAirNow
  • Posting the selfie online with your personal comments and include the petition link prominently in the post (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/654572) asking people to sign and share it.

This campaign starts posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok – any social media platform, during the week of 7th May. that can be printed out and held up are downloadable below, or you can make your own sign. A handwritten sign is fine – or write the hashtag on your arm, face, etc – the intention is to grab attention and spread awareness, so feel free to be creative.

If you don’t like having your photo online why not:

  • Just share one of the signs above as a post
  • Take a photo of your pet with the sign
  • Share a photo of the sign propped against a HEPA filter
  • Anything else that comes to mind to put the point across

We look forward to seeing your photos online and don’t forget to like and repost other people’s selfies. If you’re on Twitter you might want to follow @hazardscampaign and @strawfie who are leading the campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

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