Uniform response

Advice from the Ministry of Health on not wearing lab coats outside of hospitals is sound

Medical professionals have been asked not to wear their professional clothing outside of their medical institutions. Pawan Singh / The National

Advice from the Ministry of Health on not wearing work clothes outside of hospitals is sound

It has become fairly common in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to see workers wearing the white uniforms of medical professionals as they go to and from their institutions. Rarely are these lab coats, of course, but more often they are the uniforms of nurses, hospital technicians and dental assistants. But professional as it looks, there are associated dangers, as the Ministry of Health warned this week.

In a circular, the ministry instructed professionals not to wear such clothing outside of their medical institutions. Germs can too easily be trapped in sleeves or pockets and find their way into the bodies of others.

It works the other way too. One doesn’t need to be excessively paranoid about infection to recognise that buses, shared cars, lifts – anywhere, indeed, where many people pass daily – will be home to many strains of infection. By wearing such clothing on the way to work, medical professionals are putting their patients at risk of catching something they themselves snagged on the way to work – or taking home with them a bug better left at work.

Good practice, then, would suggest that medical and dental staff wear their civilian clothes to and from their places of work and change once there. Any germs would therefore stay where they are.