HOSPITAL HYGIENE IN EUROPE - THE SITUATION IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS

The situation of hospital hygiene in Belgium and in the Netherlands is described in the light of the official regulations, the composition a nd the functioning of the infection committee and of the hospital hygi ene team, and the availability of official or semi-official guidelines . Typical for the Netherlands is the long tradition of issuing guideli nes on hospital hygiene, in the beginning in 1966 in the form of an ad vice of the Health Council, at present in the guidelines of the Workin g Group on Infection Prevention (WIP). A particularity for Belgium is the financing by the state of the hospital hygiene doctor and the hosp ital hygiene nurses based on a system of scores in which the beds of s pecialisms with a higher infection risk count for more than general be ds.