
This week, as I was scrolling through the various news feeds
I get I came across an article
from the UK where an elderly woman had passed away after drinking
cleaning fluid that was left in her room in the same type of container that the
hospital used to provide water to patients.
Again the container was not labelled with any information as to what it
contained. What made this situation even
more frustrating is the fact that management at this facility missed an
opportunity to learn and disseminate lessons from a 2016 incident on the same
floor of the hospital involving the drinking of cleaning fluid.
But not labelling cleaning and disinfecting products is not
the only situation where chemicals can cause harm. This week (well actually today), I received two
questions from people about mixing chemicals.
One question was about adding an “odor neutralizer” to their
disinfectant and a second asking what would happen if they mixed 2 different
disinfectants together. All I can do is
sigh…
Similar to the potential adverse effects of consuming
chemicals, mixing chemicals can be deadly.
As noted in my Top
Disinfectant Offences for 2011 blog, Custodial Chemists are one of
my favorite but perhaps most frustrating groups. This group of people believe that if they mix
different products together they can make a better product, simplifying their
job or with the addition of “odor neutralizers”, masking odors that have been
left behind by improper cleaning procedures. They’re my favorite group
because I have the opportunity to educate, but they are frustrating because the
discussion often happens after an incident.
Mixing chemicals deeply concerns me because it can often
be deadly. An example that sticks with
me is one that happened about a year before I started working in the cleaning
and disinfection industry. I remember it
so vividly as it happened close to where I live. In 2002, Gloria Lucas, a caretaker who worked
at a school in Toronto died
on the last day of school. Ms.
Lucas died of acute chlorine gas intoxication after a corrosive chlorine gas
was released as a result of mixing a toilet-bowl cleaner and a bleach-based
cleaning product.
I cannot stress the importance of labelling cleaning
and disinfecting products and to never mix chemicals together unless you have
very clear instructions to do so. Cleaners
and disinfectants are chemicals. They
can cause harm and in some cases can result in death. Any time a product is taken out of the
original container and put into a secondary container it MUST be labelled so
that it can be easily identified and under NO circumstances should chemicals be
mixed unless their label instructions specifically state this is to be
completed and how to do so.
Please stay safe.
Please use cleaners and disinfectants as manufacturers meant them to be
used.
Bugging Off!
Nicole