Abstract
There is a problem for those committed to evidence-based medicine and for sustainable health: there is a paucity of direct evidence that routine double-gloving makes any difference to surgical site infections (SSIs) or confers any demonstrable protection to surgical staff. Hospital stay is not shortened. Against this, there are multiple reasons why double-gloving is not justified as a routine during surgery: it has adverse environmental consequences and is unnecessarily costly to health institutions. It causes harm in the absence of evidence of benefit.