[The hygienic status in community health nursing stations]

199 bases of so-called "Gemeindeschwestern" (nurses delegated by communal authorities as medical auxiliary personnel to practising physicians) in the territory of the former district of Neubrandenburg (now part of the new Land called Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) were examined to determine the sanitary and hygienic conditions obtaining in these bases. Many of these were found to be unsatisfactory: not only the desolate state of the building materials, but also the available space and the water supply. In 14.6% of the consulting rooms hands could not be washed in running water. 39 nurses were found to be violating the rules governing the handling of drugs in respect of storage practices. Sterilisation equipment was often obsolete, and some of the nurses were not complying with their obligation to keep records of the performance of the equipment and to conduct obligatory checks on its proper functioning. Other violations concerned improper storage and unsatisfactory packing of the sterilised items. In 20.1% of the cases disinfectants were incorrectly employed. 45.2% of the ready solutions did not conform with the nurses' statements. A multitude of rules governing the safety of working were ignored due to neglect, quite apart from the low overall standard of hygiene; due to all these unpleasant circumstances, the safety upon which a patient must be able to rely, was no longer assured.