Posted on: Monday, July 9, 2001

Surgical garments aren't just for surgery anymore

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Staff Writer

From left, Cathy Baptiste, Stephanie Hudson and Caroline Paned, try on aloha print hospital scrubs at Uniforms Hawaii. Pat Auld, manager of Uniforms Hawaii, says the business does a run of 1,000 aloha print scrubs every quarter. Children's sizes also are available. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

You see them on folks in the aisles at Longs. Down by the pool. In the parking lot. On TheBus. On the backs of tourists. One woman has five different pairs; she wears them when she walks her dogs.

Surgical scrubs aren't worn just by emergency-room doctors and surgical nurses any more. They've become hip streetwear, even though medical residents dragging their exhausted bodies home in a pair of scrubs after a 24-hour shift might not look at them that way.

"Yeah, it is getting to be a fashion statement and maybe a status symbol because of all the hospital programs on TV," said Dan Jessop, chief operating officer of Queen's Medical Center. "We have an employee store, and if people want to buy scrubs, they can. But it's a darker blue. The light blue ones are our (employee) scrubs."

Josie Tabucbuc, a nursing assistant at Pali Momi, has even worn scrubs to dinner with her husband when there wasn't time to go home and change after work. "It's comfortable," she said. "The looser the better. You're free with everything you do."

But the propensity for employees to latch onto a pair of hospital-issue scrubs and keep them (or perhaps lose them to someone else in the family) is costing the institutions and laundry services big bucks. Queen's alone sees $5,000 worth of linens (scrubs, sheets and blankets) disappear every week.

Many hospitals have already cut back on the number of scrubs they offer to personnel, limiting the garb to those who are involved in direct patient care or surgical areas.

"The scrubs that we lose annually would be $100,000 easily," said first lady Vicky Cayetano, president of United Laundry Service, which has the contract to provide and launder the scrubs for 25 medical facilities, including 10 hospitals.

United Laundry owns the hospital scrubs (and sends out about 1,000 pairs per day); the hospitals rent from them. But, with huge losses to contend with, the laundry service is looking at ways to make changes. Hospitals across the country face similar problems, said Cayetano.

"It's so much that we think we're actually going to invest a quarter of a million dollars in a vending machine system that issues scrubs," said United Laundry operations manager Ford Fuchigami. "Everyone who uses scrubs will get an allocation and a card allowing them to draw out at a certain level."

If soiled scrubs don't come back, fresh ones won't be dispensed.

There are other reasons to keep a lid on the scrubs, said Fuchigami. When people see scrubs on the town, they wonder about cleanliness in the hospital. The laundry service has received calls from concerned members of the public.

"You don't know if there's an infectious agent on that scrub," said Fuchigami. "It's a huge debate. Under JAHCO (the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations), they say the least amount of touching of soiled linen is what they prefer."

With hospitals tightening up on hospital-issue scrubs, private enterprise is happy to fill the gap. And it's a booming business. "We have people here who buy them as pajamas or loungewear," said Pat Auld, manager of Uniforms Hawai'i, which does a run of 1,000 scrubs in aloha prints every quarter.

"We get golfers and tourists," Auld said. "They come in and buy, and go back home and ask to be put on the mailing list for swatches. I send them to my mother in Chicago, and she loves them. And she's 80. Now I'm sending to all her friends."

Uniforms Hawai'i also carries children's sizes, and at Halloween, Auld said, scrubs make popular costumes.

Castle Medical Center in Kailua brings in scrubs manufacturers during Nurses Week in May for a fashion show so staff can pick the latest designs. "In the Birth Center, they choose ones with babies on them. And there are Christmas motifs for Christmas time," said spokeswoman Helene Waihe'e.

Large production companies aren't the only ones benefiting from scrub fashion. At Kapi'olani Medical Center at Pali Momi, Edith Fiesta in housekeeping makes scrubs as a sideline business to help put her kids through school. She runs up 20 pairs a night, and at a recent craft fair at the hospital she sold 100 pairs in aloha prints. There was always a flurry of action at her table.

"Before, plenty nurses gave me their material and I would sew for them," said Fiesta. "Then I discovered, 'Why don't I make my own and sell it?' ... I take the regular scrubs from the hospital and copy it. When they had the blessing for the Outpatient Services Department at the hospital, I made the uniforms, about 25 pieces."

Maggie Cabastas, nurse manager for peri-operative services, including the operating room and the Surgicenter at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children, is doing something similar on a smaller scale.

"I've mastered how to make really nice ones," said Cabastas, who has 30 or 40 pairs in her own closet. "I think the best thing about colorful material is the positive effect it has on the staff, and, of course, the patients."