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Handwashing: Does your doctor do it often enough?

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Doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals at several Vancouver Island hospitals aren't practising proper hygiene, according to an audit conducted into handwashing techniques.

Health professionals were openly observed for the entire month last February at Victoria General, Royal Jubilee, Saanich Peninsula and Nanaimo General hospitals. The audit showed that less than one-third of all handwashing is done properly and that physicians are the worst offenders.

On average, they were in compliance 12 per cent of the time.

The head of infection prevention and control for the heath authority, Bev Dobbin, called the results "surprising" and "disappointing."

Read more:

Have you ever asked your doctor if he or she has washed hands prior to examining you? What was the reaction? Take our poll.

(This poll is not scientific. It is based on readers' votes.)

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