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The BBC are reporting: Crocs cause nurse safety concern
A hospital has banned theatre nurses from wearing popular Crocs shoes - suggesting they might be dangerous.
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Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust said the brightly coloured clogs might pose a health and safety or infection risk.
However, they denied they were worried about reports that static electricity build-up caused by the shoes could disrupt medical equipment.
The shoes' maker said they can be cleaned more easily than alternatives.
Ward Walkers said that some styles of Crocs were actively marketed to healthcare professionals.
A spokesman for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals said staff were expected to uphold a dress code, which was in place to prevent infection, maintain health and safety and keep a "professional image".
Under the code, shoes should be black, low-heeled, soft-soled and supportive.
A spokesman said that theatre staff had already been told to stop wearing the most popular variety of Crocs - those with holes in the top or side - because of risk of injury from falling scalpels and needles, or the risk of catching an infection from blood dropping through the holes.
However, she said that there was no extra infection risk to patients as a result, and styles without the holes were allowed.
She said that the trust would be working with staff unions and foundation trust governors to discuss whether the policy could change to include Crocs.
In April, a hospital in Sweden banned the shoes after three incidents in which static electricity from staff wearing them was discharged into medical equipment, causing it to malfunction.
Bjorn Lofqvist, the spokesman for Blekinge Hospital, said that staff wearing Crocs could produce "a cloud of lightning".
However, the Sheffield spokesman said that no similar incidents had sparked concern in the UK.
"The Trust has not experienced an incident such as those which are reported to have occurred at the Swedish hospital and has not received any specific guidance from the Health Protection Agency to indicate that any footwear should be banned as a result of interference with medical equipment."
Roy Mclean, the chief executive of Ward Walkers, which distributes the shoes in the UK, said that some styles were perfect for clinical use.
He said that although many surgical clogs used in operating theatres are designed to release static electricity safely, the issue had never been raised as a concern with regard to Crocs.
"The advantage of the Crocs is that they can be washed in a mild bleach solution without any damage - unlike the majority of other shoes used by hospital staff.
"I know of two surgeons who use them in the operating theatre, and put them in the sterilising machine afterwards."
He said that the most commonly-sold version of Crocs, with holes in the top and sides, was unsuitable for hospital use, due to the danger of dropped needles injuring the foot.
Judy Potter, the chairman of the Infection Control Nurses' Association, confirmed that Crocs were far easier to keep clean than conventional shoes, posing a lower infection risk.
However, she accepted that styles which had holes in the top could allow blood and fluids from patients to reach the skin.
Janet Davies, executive director at the Royal College of Nursing, said: "It is up to each individual trust to put in place risk assessment procedures which ensure the safety of patients and staff in the workplace."
To the best of my knowledge the UK karffuffle about Crocs and Health and Safety is a mirror what took place earlier in Canada and Sweden. Sadly the evidence to support the marginalisation of the most sophisticated footwear on earth was completely without foundation. This has not stopped the foot police from their continued condemnation.
Crocs have become the stilettos of the 21st century with 100% attitude
(50% for them and 50% against). I am surprised the knockers have not picked on the one major flaw Crocs have, the shoes are literally indestructable.
I am surprised the knockers have not picked on the one major flaw Crocs have, the shoes are literally indestructable.
Are you sure? I am on a boring on-duty weekend in my wife community pharmacy and I have fancied at least a dozen ways to destroy my own Crocs. Should I start the empirical phase or just state that Crocs are pretty rough but not indestructible?
Crocs are biting back with new workplace designed shoe models for doctors and nurses to meet workplace dress codes. It is new range, called The Specialist and Specialist Vent. Snappy!
WTVM are reporting: Local Podiatrist Talks About Dangers of Crocs
Sep 20, 2007 08:37 AM
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You'd think they were the best thing since sliced bread...they come in nearly every size and color...and no....you won't just see kids and women wearing Crocs.
"My husband wears them, and my three-year-old daughter wears them a lot and we have a niece and nephew, since it's the fad and everybody wants," says local resident Roxanna Hamilton.
But the question now is should everybody get them?
This after several incidents including one at the Atlanta airport where a three-year-old boy wearing Crocs suffered a deep gash across the top of his toes while riding an escalator.
In Virginia, another toddler wearing Crocs got his foot caught in an escalator and a toe nail ripped off.
One local podiatrist says he's not surprised some incidents have occurred.
"I tell my patients if you can take a shoe and you can fold it upon itself meaning taking the front part and folding it to the back, it's probably not a good shoe for you, you want to try and find a shoe that has a rigid support or a rigid sole on the bottom," says Alap Shah, D.P.M. of Foot and Ankle of West Georgia.
Hamilton is buying another pair for her husband, he simply wears them around the house.
"Just outside in the yard, he doesn't wear them off because it's not good for him with his job, he just wears them around the yard," says Hamilton.
According to Dr. Shah, if at all...that's how most people should use them.
"I think they're good for casual wear such as going out to check the mail or just spending some time in the yard or going to the beach, but it's definitely not an everyday type shoe."
ABC7Chicago are reporting: Crocs and escalators a dangerous combo
September 19, 2007 -
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Ten-year-old Chloe Johnson of Kansas City was afraid of sharks -- something that she made well known to her parents during a 2005 vacation to Florida.
But it was only on the way back from the vacation, in Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, that she received an unexpected bite -- from an escalator.
She was not goofing around at all, but she must have been standing in a way that brought her left Croc shoe into contact with the side of the escalator," recalls Chloe's father, Neil Johnson.
"I started hearing her squeal, and my immediate reaction was, 'Oh goodness, what now?'" he said.
But the pain Chloe experienced was all too real. The shoe had been bitten and twisted by the escalator mechanism, wrenching her foot along with it.
By the time she had limped off of the top of the escalator, helped by her parents, blood from her seriously injured toe began seeping out from the shoe.
"Her left big toe was mutilated like you wouldn't believe," Johnson said. "I sat on the floor and held her foot somewhat elevated, with blood running down my forearms."
Fortunately Chloe recovered fully. "It's a little disfigured, but she played soccer all through last year," Johnson said. But in recent months, a growing number of reports have joined those of Johnson's family as more children worldwide are experiencing foot and toe injuries from wearing the popular shoes on escalators.
According to foreign media reports, there have been dozens of reports in Asia as well of the shoes getting jammed and twisted in escalators, often resulting in serious foot and toe injuries in children.
On Sept. 7, Japanese government officials warned of the dangers associated with the shoes getting stuck in escalators. The officials cited 39 reports of such incidents in recent weeks, and most involved small children as young as 2.
And some stores and other areas where escalators are present are taking notice, posting warnings for those wearing the shoes to avoid the moving stairways entirely. Thus far, however, reports of such injuries made to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission have been spare. A spokesperson for the Colorado-based company, Tia Mattson, said the reports highlight "really just a few isolated incidents."
But some doctors say the shoes may be an accident waiting to happen for young wearers.
"There seems to be some potential for injury there," said Russell Volpe, professor of Orthopaedics and Pediatrics at the N.Y. College of Podiatric Medicine in New York City, who adds that he has nonetheless not yet seen any patients with these complaints.
"As we are starting to hear with this Croc story, we may hear more about traumatic foot injuries. They do expose the foot to risk."
Others note that the problem may have less to do with shoes and more to do with escalators themselves.
"I don't know if it's a shoe problem or it's an escalator problem," said Donna Alfieri, associate professor of Primary Podiatric Medical Sciences and director of Clinical Research at the N.Y. College of Podiatric Medicine. "In general, I think you have to be careful when you get on and off the escalator anyway because people do have injuries if they're not careful with where they place their footing." ....
I hear all the general health and safety issues as well as their indestructable nature but what about the boimech angle - surely they are soooooo not good for foot and srtuctural mechanics or am I just not getting the point of these shoes.
Another hospital has banned them: Local hospital rules: No Crocs allowed
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Add Crocs, or plastic clogs, to the list of footwear that doctors and nurses can’t wear while working at St. Cloud Hospital.
Open-toed shoes and sandals weren’t allowed under the previous policy, and the hospital recently added the plastic shoes. It was one of many revisions the hospital made to its policies, said Jeanine Nistler, hospital spokeswoman.
Concerns about holes in the shoes and the exposure of feet to blood-borne pathogens is behind the policy banning open-toed shoes and Crocs, she said.
To the best of my knowledge all claims these shoes were a health hazard in the workplace have no support.
Moving machinery aside, concerns about exposure of feet to blood-borne pathogens in the workplace is perfectly understandable but most unlikely when the person wears socks. The new generation of socks where manufacturers claim anti-microbial properties would provided added protection from cross infection. Plastic shoes are more likely to be disinfected than shoes made with animal or vegetable material. The polymer material used in Crocs is very durable and the foot pad for most people would give the same suport as any other accommodative orthoses . The shoes are not ideal for everyone but what footwear is? Again, and I stand to be corrected but the enormous popularity of the plastic clog has not heralded a significant increase in reported foot pathologies.
You either love them or hate 'em, but for the majority of people who wear them there is no increase risk to their health according to all the objective data.
Crocs banned for being dangerous
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