Roberto del Rio Children's Hospital - the oldest pediatric facility in Chile - has installed Antimicrobial Copper surfaces in its intensive care and treatment rooms. The initiative was developed in conjunction with the Chilean Ministry of Health, and aims to revolutionize hospital hygiene standards using surfaces that have been shown to continuously reduce microbial contaminationmore than 99%. The installation is a first for Latin America, following a growing number of installations in Europe, Asia and North America.
"We are proud to unveil the first antimicrobial touch surfaces in our hospital," said Doctor Ignacio Hernandez, Director of Roberto del Rio. "This initiative will benefit children who are hospitalized in critical conditions as they will be in a healthier environment."
Surfaces upgraded to antimicrobial copper include bed rails, trolleys, taps, hand rails and door furniture. All products bear the Cu+ mark, certifying that all the copper alloys used benefit from copper's inherent ability to rapidly kill bacteria in between regular cleans.
Doctor Michael Schmidt,Professor and Vice Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina, has said of Roberto del Rio: "These are among the best public facilities using Antimicrobial Copper I've seen. I hope this initiative will be replicated by many health services around the world."
Installation of Antimicrobial Copper items in every room in the intensive care and treatment units will be completed in the second half of 2012.
