Bengaluru : Soon you may miss those long white coats wearing doctors and para-medics in hospitals and medical clinics. A new dress code replacing the white aprons may be on the cards as a new study reveals banning long-sleeved white coats could reduce spread of infections in hospitals.
“Long sleeved coats spread infection and lead to avoidable harm and cost to patients,” said Edmond Fernandes, a postgraduate at Yenepoya Medical College in Bengaluru. “Every hospital should have a committee to check and respond to hospital acquired infections,” he added. “But an easy win would be for ministry of health to ban doctors and medical students from wearing white coats, to reduce the harm and cost that results from hospital acquired infections,” Fernandes said in the study published in the journal The BMJ.
“Although long sleeved white coats have traditionally been worn by doctors since the 19th century, we now know that white coats harbour potential contaminants and contribute considerably to the burden of disease acquired in hospital by spreading infection,” Fernandes added.
He said that in India, changing areas in hospitals are rare because of space constraints. They are also often left on chairs, tables, and in corridors. He added that in many cities in India some junior doctors are also now seen wearing white coats in shopping malls and cinemas too, and then they enter sterile zones in the hospital in the same attire. In 2007, the United Kingdom took the landmark decision to ban long sleeved white coats – and that in 2009, the American Medical Association wanted to follow suit and dump the white coats, “but the proposal was dismissed because clinicians wanted to keep their traditional gowns”, he said.
