Visitors at a hospital in the midlands have ripped hand sanitiser bottles from walls and stolen the gel to top up their own supplies amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Containers of anti-bacterial gel have disappeared from the ends of patient beds “every single day” this week, health chiefs at Northampton General Hospital reported.
Three mounted dispensers were ripped off the walls, while visitors used the hospital’s supply of sanitiser to “top up” their own bottles.
“Nothing like this has ever happened in all the years we’ve had the gel,” a spokeswoman for Northampton General told the BBC.
It comes as retailers report a surge in demand for the product, which has emptied shelves at swathes of pharmacies and supermarkets.
The government has ramped up calls for better hand hygiene as key to curbing the spread of the Covid-19 virus, which has infected 163 people in the UK so far.
Sally-Anne Watts, the hospital’s associate communications director, told the BBC: “Over the past week we’ve seen stocks on wards disappear from the end of beds every single day.
“Three wall-mounted dispensers have been ripped off and we’ve even seen people coming in and topping up their own dispensers with our product.”
Public Health England said people should wash their hands with soap and water, or hand sanitiser, for 20 seconds to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium (BRC) on behalf of supermarkets, said it was working “constructively” with the Government to ensure supermarkets remain stocked of in-demand products.
She said: “While coronavirus has increased the demand of certain products in the short-term, we are confident that any disruption will remain limited and consumers will continue to be able to choose from a wide selection of foods and other products in stores across the country.”
