Wearing and taking off gloves properly

This English spoken video shows you a proper way of wearing and taking off gloves.

Why gloves

Non-sterile gloves are mainly used to protect staff, for example, to prevent contact with microorganisms, such as viruses and bacteria, or to prevent contact with dangerous substances and high-risk medicines, such as cytostatics and antibiotics.

At work, the gloves used may become contaminated. Be aware of this. Do not touch your body, face or clothes while working. And do not touch surfaces that you, or your colleagues, touch without gloves. If you do, you contaminate your environment unnoticed. That is why the department has agreed ways of working with gloves.

People in laboratories work with a variety of dangerous substances. Dangerous substances can penetrate the glove over time and end up on your skin. The time required for this is called the breakthrough time, which varies from substance to substance and is often not known. For some substances, the breakthrough time is a few minutes and for others it is much longer, even up to several hours. Rule of thumb: after contact with a dangerous substance, change gloves.

How to remove your gloves

Pull off the gloves without contaminating yourself, using the pick-and-shove method:

• Basic rule for removing gloves: dirt to dirt and clean to clean.
• Take the outside of the glove with your fingers.
• Pull the glove down and hold it in the palm of your hand.
• Put two clean fingers inside the other glove.
• Pull the glove to the outer side and throw the gloves away.
• When working in a care unit: Disinfect hands and wrists after removing the gloves.

For more information on the use of gloves use, see Skin strain.