Using gloves

Fear of infection may deter some people from providing emergency first aid.  When you are helping a patient, you don't want blood, vomit or other bodily fluids to come into contact with your hands. 

Wearing gloves makes it easier for you to deal with a situation and gives you protection. There are a lot of different types of glove, nitrile and vinyl are commonly used in first aid. Latex gloves are not used regularly now because of the risk of an allergic reaction.  Gloves can be powdered or powder-free, powder makes them much easier to put on but some people do have an allergy to the powder itself.

The vinyl gloves are also commonly used in food preparation and are not very strong, they can be torn quite easily and you need to be careful not to rip them when putting them on.

Nitrile gloves are commonly used in first aid, they come in different colours and in some organisations different colours are used for different areas or purposes.  There is no left or right, the gloves fit on either hand, before putting gloves on, make sure that there are rings that may tear the glove and have a look to make sure there are no holes or tears.

Put the gloves on carefully as demonstrated in the video, always check to make sure that you haven't torn them while putting them on. If you are dealing with more than one patient, you will need to change your gloves to avoid cross-contamination. All BSI first aid kits come with at least six pairs of gloves.

Taking the gloves off correctly is important, you need to make sure that any blood or other bodily fluid doesn't come into contact with your skin.  They should be removed as demonstrated in the video and disposed of with any other soiled items by placing them in a biohazard bag or bin, they should never be put in with general waste, where someone could potentially come into contact with them.

There are special rules in some workplaces for the correct disposal of gloves and other infected materials, so it is best to check your local guidelines.