Illness in daycare is of great concern for parents and daycare providers. Your health and medication regulations can help prevent the spread of illness in daycare. The sick child policy sets forth the rules and expectations. We asked for tips from Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Assistant Executive Director of Quality Improvement & Health Services at Episcopal Social Services. In our interview, Dr. Rodriguez shows us how to prevent illness in daycare.
OwnADaycare: What tips do you have to help daycare staff stop the spread of illness?
Dr. Luis Rodriguez: We’ve instructed our personnel to following the following hand washing procedure: They are to use soap while rubbing hands vigorously under running water for at least 30 seconds. I use a neat trick to ensure they wash long we tell them to sing “Happy Birthday.”
- Wash all surfaces, including back of hands, wrists, between fingers and under your fingernails.
- Rinse hands well under running water.
- Dry hands with a clean paper towels.
Our staff wear non-porous disposable gloves that are to be worn diapering a child and in any situation where there might be contact with blood, bodily fluids or blood-or fluid-contaminated bodies, items or substances.
The toys and other play materials are washed at the end of the day with soap and water and cleaned with an appropriate disinfecting solution. . Those toys and items that have been in a child’s mouth are placed in a container. For home based visits those items are placed in a sealed ZIPLOCK bag, so it can be washed and disinfected later and will not accidentally be used with another child we visit.
OwnADaycare: Recently there has been a lot of media attention about alcohol based hand sanitizers and the danger they can potentially pose to small children. In your opinion are they (alcohol based hand sanitizers) safe and /or necessary for preschool or day care environment?
Dr. Luis Rodriguez: Children are naturally curious about everything, including the taste, the smell, and texture of products. They learn about the world through smelling, touching and tasting. Brightly colored liquids, spray containers, pills and leafy of flowering plants are all attractive lures to children, who may attempt to learn more about them through spraying, smelling or swallowing. The mechanics of spray containers are of particular interest to many curious children. That being said and knowing that some children have been poisoned by these solutions, I do not consider them safe to use in our day care facility.
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