Re: Dreadlock hair

10/09/2019 at 11:11 am #75788 Quote

Participant

Author:
Coralie Tyrrell

Email:
Coralie.Tyrrell@WGHG.COM.AU

Organisation:
West Gippsland Healthcare Group

State:
VIC

I note this email discussion with interest.
Whilst it is commonsense to have clean hair, tied back (dreadlocks or not) I am struggling to provide any guidelines (other than surgical attire and food services) that actually outlines the requirement for hair management in health care.
Lots of reference to nails limited reference to uniform.
Grateful if anyone can direct me to actual research and/or guidelines regarding hair.

Coralie

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Hi Linda,

Our uniform policy also states that hair that reaches the collar must be tied back. It does not specify that it must be above the collar. I have long hair and generally put it up in a pony tail when I am working. I hope this person is achieving their dreadlocks in a clean manner rather than by not washing their hair at all because that is just yuck. Either way if your policy is above the collar and back then the onus is on the staff member to achieve that. If we start watering down policies we get on a very slippery slope and people will just decide to not follow policies they don’t agree with.

As far as the dermal piercings go we cannot prevent staff from self expression. The issue with them would be if they inadvertently touch them whilst they are caring for patients as the science shows that ear and nose piercings have an increased biological load and we could extrapolate that to other piercings.

Now as for the nails there have been incidences of artificial nails linked to neonatal deaths. The jury is still out on the shellac as there have not been much in the way of studies. It has been postulated that the UV curing reduces the biological load between the nail and the shellac. Fresh nail polish (2mm are linked to higher biological load and reduced cleaning efficiency than nail polish probably due to the difficulty getting under the nails to clean properly.

I hope this helps

Regards Angela Carvosso
Registered Nurse
Warwick Hospital

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Thanks Kathy

I forgot to mention that the staff member is a Registered Nurse.

As well as the potential infection control issues, I also wondered about the Work Health and Safety aspect with long hair/dreadlock and the long hair getting caught in some of the machinery (lifters, electronic beds etc) that we use.

Regards

Linda

Hi Linda,

Our uniform policy states the same as yours short hair or if long tied back when working, dreadlock’s I believe are an infection risk because they can not be tied up adequately when they are that long. Our staff have an obligation to adhere to the uniform policy to be employed at the hospital. Having said that we have a lot of staff with dermal piercings in different spots, and artificial nails with shellac or SNS is also a problem. Not sure how we are going to police these things. So in short no I don’t think the policy encompases dreadlock hair!!

Kind regards

Kathy O’Donnell
CNC IPAC Westmead Hospital

On 9 Sep 2019, at 5:39 pm, Linda Mccaskill <Linda.McCaskill@ACHA.ORG.AU> wrote:

Just wondering if anyone has a policy that covers dreadlock hair.

We have a staff member whose dreadlocks have grown very long (when left long they are past her shoulders down her back) and are too long and big to wrap into a bun.

Our currently hospital policy is that hair should be above shoulder height and that long/medium length hair must be tied back.

My feeling is that they need to be trimmed to a shorter length but welcome any thoughts on this?

Kind Regards

Linda McCaskill (RN, BN, GC NSC Inf Ctrl)

Infection Control Manager
Ashford Hospital
55 Anzac Highway, Ashford, SA 5035
T : 8375 5209 (external) or ext 4209 (internal)
E : linda.mccaskill@acha.org.au

Please note I work Monday to Thursday

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The use of trade/product/commercial brand names through the list is discouraged by ACIPC. If you wish to discuss specific reference to products or services by brand or commercial names, please do this outside the list.

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