Compassion Versus Infection Prevention and Control in Hospital Visiting; A False Dichotomy? A Case Study of Informal Caregiving in a Ugandan Regional Referral Hospital

Abstract

This paper addresses the role of visitors or ‘attendants’ in the transmission and management of infection risk in a public referral hospital in Uganda. The study built on research on maternal sepsis which found that over 50% antibiotics administered in the hospital were for Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs). The data was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic which introduced new risks and heightened concern about social movements within hospitals and between hospitals and communities. In the first study of its kind, observational data was collected on a 24/7 basis to capture the presence and roles of attendants in a low resource setting exposing both the infection risks associated with these forms of movement but also the absolute necessity of attendants in the management of infection risk in such contexts. The paper responds directly to a recent call for a ‘new conversation on infection prevention and compassion’ (Storr et al, 2023;408).