Hospital
Hospital is a place where you would go to get treatment for a disease but it’s also a place where you could get infected by many air borne diseases. The indoor air of hospitals is deteriorating every day because of increase in number of patients being admitted. Several patients are diagnosed with many diseases that can affect others by transmitting through air. These air borne diseases can be found in
Out Patient Departments
Each doctor in the hospital sees more than a hundred patients on a daily basis within the same room. Every patient is a carrier of viral, fungal or bacterial infection or suffers with several forms of contagious disease which could affect the health of the doctor, other patients and the staff working there.
Operation theatre
Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the second to third most common type of healthcare associated infections (HAIs). These complications of surgical procedures cause considerable morbidity and, when these occur deep at the site of the procedure, they can carry mortality as high as 77%. As illustrated below there are several key steps or “chains” that have to be connected to result in infection. However, for SSIs, the initial introduction of microbial pathogens occurs most often during the surgical procedure performed in the Operating Theatre (OT). This is one of the key reasons why air purifiers are vital in operation theatres.
Intensive Care Units, Post-operative care and Burn Wards
Several kinds of patients are treated simultaneously in ICUs, post-operative care and Burn Wards – in most of the cases under air conditioning. This causes the same stale air to get constantly circulated and several air borne allergens to proliferate.
Maternity wards, Neo-natal and Pediatric ICUs
Maternity wards and Paediatric ICUs can be breeding grounds of several infections and they affect mothers and infants at a time when they are most vulnerable.
Several hospitals are located in the heart of cities where vehicular traffic is heavy and there is a high density of atmospheric pollutants. A good example is the city of Delhi where air quality is consistently poor.