Recovery of coliforms from the hands of nurses and patients: activities leading to contamination.

Coliform type organisms were recovered from the hands of nurses and patients in an Orthopaedic Hospital. Coliforms were frequently recovered from nurses' hands after touching patients' washing materials and clothing as well as after bed making, sluice room activities and handling clean or dirty linen and curtains. The recovery rates were higher in wards for spinally injured patients than in the surgical wards. Coliforms were recovered with similar frequencies, to those from nurses, from the hands of patients in both types of wards.