Isolation Ward

Isolation Ward 

in medicine, specially equipped premises designed for the isolation of patients and others who have been in contact with carriers of infectious diseases or who have been exposed to a high-danger zone of infection. The most effective type of isolation ward is a chamber with a separate entrance and exit. A ward with isolated compartments is used for less strict isolation. Isolation wards are also set up in nurseries and kindergartens, Pioneer camps, sanatoriums, and rest homes.

When necessary, an isolation ward may be arranged on temporarily adapted premises (apartments, separate rooms). Houses, dugouts, mud huts, tents, and cabins are used under military (especially field) conditions. In such cases the isolation wards must be removed from other units, they are set up away from lines of movement, living quarters, supply depots, kitchens, water supply, and so forth. A special inventory is set aside for the isolation ward: disinfectants, bedding, underclothes, and clothing for the patients, and dishes, nursing supplies, medications, instruments, and protective clothing for personnel. Only personnel well trained in the methods of dealing with infectious patients and in measures of personal prophylaxis are allowed to work in an isolation ward. Personnel are vaccinated when necessary.

An isolation ward for sick animals is a room with a separate entrance and exit; it should be no less than 200 m from living and breeding quarters. A depression is made in the floor at the entrance to the ward for flat tubs in which floor mats or felt, saturated with a disinfectant liquid, are placed. In meat-packing plants isolation wards are equipped to hold up to 1 percent of the daily intake of cattle.