Now, wash your hands

Why is basic personal hygiene such a challenge to so many people? Is it because they’ve never seen anybody get sick, really sick, from totally preventable nasties like diarrhoea and respiratory infections?

You only have to use a busy public toilet to realise how many people either don’t wash their hands, or don’t wash them properly. There are quite a few people on my “don’t shake hands” list as a consequence of some simple observation.

What’s worse is that many toilets in offices, hotels and other public places are very poorly designed and maintained.

At one place I frequent — an outpost of a huge international chain — I sprang the cleaner using the same cloth to clean the toilet bowl and the hand basin and taps. Think about that for a moment.

If you’ve been to a relatively modern airport lately, you’ll notice that world’s best practice in lavatory design dictates that there are few, or no, surfaces for people to touch, especially after they have washed their hands. The soap dispensers and taps start automatically, and there are no door handles on the way out.

The restrooms in an office I’m very familiar with were recently redesigned, totally ignoring those best practices.

On many cruise ships, there are now extra paper towels and waste bins right at the door of the public facilities, so people with clean hands can use the towel to open the door, then dispose of it as they leave. There’s even a notice on the door explaining how and why to do this.

At the hotel with Typhoid Harry the toilet attendant, there is no such mechanism — in fact, they’ve just stopped people from being able to do so by installing a bin that won’t stay open.

I understand low-level ignorance about personal hygiene, but I don’t understand how international corporations like, for example, the Starwood hotel group don’t adopt best practices before somebody gets very sick — and very litigious!