Madam, - The current advertising campaign encouraging patients to ask their doctors if they have washed their hands is a joke.
As someone who has spent some time in hospital as a vulnerable patient - a common feeling when you are sick - I would have felt neither comfortable, nor that it was necessary, to ask any doctor if they had washed their hands before they treated me. I would take it as a given.
Maybe the citizens of Ireland should launch an advertising campaign before the next general election asking our political representatives if they have paid their taxes? Looks like we cannot take that as a given either. - Yours, etc,
STEPHANIE McDERMOTT, Finglas Road, Dublin 11.