The pandemic has radically revised our assumptions around health and safety. “How safe we feel in public areas has changed,” says Brian Fenton, sales manager of Decontamination Solutions, a new division of Sisk Healthcare.
“Environments that we all felt safe in – whether it was going out to music events, a restaurant, a hospital – were places we never for a second felt our health was under threat. Now just going about our daily lives leaves us feeling vulnerable.”
It’s a seismic shift he believes has led to irrevocable changes in our attitudes, knocking our confidence and, in the workplace, leaving employers and employees alike wondering how best to stay safe.
“As experts in healthcare, we were looking at businesses as they tried to stay open and focused on cleaning. We knew we had the product offering to help, but we wondered how best to help restore confidence and safety to normal life,” he explains.
Outside of the healthcare sector very few businesses prior to the pandemic were much concerned with pathogens.
Not in this part of the world, at least. “Infection control was something we associated in hospitals,” says Fenton. But the team at Sisk Healthcare had already seen how the Sars crisis in south east Asia in 2002 had led to a sustained change in attitudes there.
The same shift is happening here, he believes. “Already responsibility for infection control is seen as something that falls on everybody,” he says.
Health and welfare
What we’ve learned in the past year won’t be unlearned any time soon, which means the purchase of hospital-grade sanitation solutions by businesses should not be viewed as a short-term Covid response, but a long-term investment in the health and welfare of staff.
He has seen that play out in countries such as South Korea, the source of one of Decontamination Solution’s most cutting-edge infection prevention solutions.
Known as VirusKiller, it is designed to protect people against airborne harmful micro-organisms using ultraviolet light air sterilisation technology. It emerged in 2003, in the aftermath of the Sars epidemic, and was subsequently rolled out in public spaces, buildings and schools there.
A typical worker will spend 40 hours a week in their office, so the quality of its air is a very important part of helping people to come back to work safely
SteriPro, a robot, uses similar UV-C technology to sterilise hard surfaces. Standing almost one and a half metres high, the mobile unit can deliver its sanitising rays upwards of six metres in any direction, including hard to reach places such as high up on walls, ceilings and vents.
Its international outlook gives Decontamination Solutions a valuable competitive edge. Sisk Healthcare Group is a leading European medical device distributor representing eight businesses across Europe.
It has depth as well as breadth, having provided the healthcare industry with decontamination and infection prevention solutions for more than 25 years.
Enormous reassurance
The fact that business owners can now use hospital quality equipment in their own workplace provides enormous reassurance to its client base, which include the office, retail and education sectors, says Fenton, whose clients include Aer Lingus, Sutton Park School and North Cork Creameries.
“A typical worker will spend 40 hours a week in their office, so the quality of its air is a very important part of helping people to come back to work safely,” he says.
“We can bring hospital grade technology into the workplace for every business owner, facilities manager, small shop or restaurant owner who is going out looking for the solutions that will help their business.”
Fenton knows that, for the vast majority, this is all new territory. “It isn’t going away any time soon, it is here to stay, but there is technology there to help.”
Just do your homework first.
“Look to see that what you buy is certified, that it has a bank of evidence behind it, and a level of service and support too. Do the research.”
