Cleanliness is both the abstract state of being clean and free from dirt, and the process of achieving and maintaining that state. Having stated that, cleanliness is the most crucial part of a human being. It separates man from animal. It is part of the human evolution. The starting point of evolving into a civilized person is from maintaining good hygiene and being fully clothed. Without this transition, we would still be cavemen or stuck in the Dark Ages. So you can understand the importance of cleanliness based on this point alone.
Everything in our daily aspect of life revolves around basic hygiene. It does not matter what your line of work is, one must always practice good hygiene. As for the health care community, we are the ones that are supposed to be the most hygienic of all. But where I am right now, here in Egypt, no one in this country cares about cleanliness anymore, or so it seems. Having stayed here for more than 5 years now, one can observe that the cleanliness practice here is not good. The streets are full of waste material. People throw their garbage at every corner available. The Egyptians would carelessly fling their rubbish to the side of the road. But let us not go further about the community here. We will focus on the universities and hospitals.
Egypt is a third world country. It is a place of low socioeconomic standards. It is understandable if the streets are stained with litter, but it is definitely not acceptable to have the hospitals tainted with unsatisfying hygiene. Here, it seems that they could light up a cigarette and smoke almost anywhere. They do not even care whether it is a smoke-free zone or not. Even the doctors would join and smoke with the people. To see educated citizens not caring about hygiene is really devastating.
Another case that I have observed is the state of public restrooms or toilets here. It is so horrifically dirty that no one would ever have the guts to take a leak or even step inside one. There is almost always no toilet paper available, not to mention rarely having adequate water supply for proper sanitation. This gives an enormous impact on the state of health of the citizens of Egypt, because the endemic diseases here are relatively caused by poor hygiene, for example, Hepatitis A. One of the cause of this disease is lacking proper cleaning habits and facilities, rendering the community susceptible to it.
Due to the state of the toilets rendering it useless, the men have taken their “leaks” to the streets. They relieve themselves everywhere, at any available walls or corner or bush. It is as if they have lack of shame. On top of that, there are no personal care hygiene anymore because they never wash their hands after relieving themselves. This lack of hygiene causes many diseases to spread to the society. Direct transmission can be readily available due to improper sanitary hygiene. One handshake with a man can transmit thousands of bacteria and that is one of the ways we need to prevent in order not to spread any infection or pathogens to the society.
Mahatma Gandhi once said “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet”. This portrays how one’s general state of hygiene can affect people’s perception of one’s mind. In a nutshell, constantly staying in a clean state and environment can give a big impact on health and prevent numerous diseases. It is our responsibility, both as doctors and humans, to spread this health awareness and practice good hygiene for a better world to live in.
This article is written by Maizatul Azamiah, a 4th year student studying in Mansoura University, Egypt. Learn more about her in the Young Columnists tab.
At first reading, I found it is a bit skeptical piece. I don’t even think that we dare to step into this matter. How can we dig into the hospital administration? Patients there barely cooperate. They just want a medicine. Something to heal their symptoms. While we the medical team are targeting too about the aetiology, and any preventions that are possible. Changing one’s life style is really a pain. How do we approach the people in that leaking project? Surely that takes almost thousand years.
But I suddenly I get frozen with myself. Hey, I’m not alone here. Why fill yourself with so much negativity at the first place? There is someone here writing this piece, addressing for thousand of medical students’s attention here. I believe we are heading for something big here.
Let’s not just stop here. Let’s do something worth before we leave Egypt forever in this last few months!