Posted on 11/18/2006 7:36:43 PM PST by blam
Hospitals told to isolate patients with superbug
By Beezy Marsh, Health Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:27am GMT 19/11/2006
Hospitals have been ordered to create MRSA isolation wards where necessary to treat patients infected with the superbug.
Under controversial Government plans, all elderly people admitted from nursing homes will be screened for MRSA and forced to use antibacterial shampoo, shower gels and creams as a precaution.
Millions more patients scheduled for operations such as hip replacements and heart and brain surgery will also be checked for infection. According to the Department of Health guidance, those found to be infected should be isolated.
But there were warnings last night that because of a shortage of beds, NHS trusts may have to set up MRSA wards and that the procedure could scare and stigmatise vulnerable patients.
The total number of cases of MRSA and the variant MSSA in England and Wales has risen from 18,030 in 2001-2 to 18,275 in 2005-6. These figures exclude other superbugs, such as clostridium difficile (C. diff).
Campaigners claim about 5,000 people die each year out of 100,000 cases of hospital-acquired infections.
The number of official superbug deaths, where MRSA is mentioned on the death certificate, has almost quadrupled, from 432 in 1993 to 1,623 in 2004, the last year when figures are available.
Commenting on the new guidance, Katharine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "This fails to address the real issue of why MRSA is rampant on the wards. There is no seven-day-a-week cleaning and standards have fallen.
"People with MRSA should be treated in isolation, but that does not happen because bed occupancy is running at almost 100 per cent. We have heard of hospitals pulling the curtains around a bed and pinning a note on it to say "isolation".
"Setting up wards full of people with MRSA seems a bizarre and insulting thing to do. It will increase anxiety."
The guidance – Screening for MRSA Colonisation – calls on all trusts to identify patients most at risk and to implement rigorous screening by testing swabs taken from the patient's nose, armpit or groin, where MRSA can live harmlessly.
Research suggests that up to 20 per cent of those in nursing homes may carry MRSA. At present most patients are not screened and the disease becomes apparent only when infection develops. Orthopædic, cardiothoracic and neurosurgery patients should also be screened, the guidelines say, because MRSA can be particularly severe for them. The bug can cause abscesses, pneumonia, septic arthritis and urinary tract infections.
Accepting that there may be a problem with bed shortages, the guidelines say: "If single rooms are not available for isolation, consideration should be given to separating MRSA positive patients from non-carriers in bays or wards."
Dr Georgia Duckworth, an MRSA expert from the Health Protection Agency, said: "Screening is an important component in the control of MRSA and it will allow early identification of patients who may carry it."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "Tackling health care acquired infections is a top priority for the Government.
"The Department of Health has issued guidance that draws together best practice for the NHS on screening and decolonising high-risk groups of patients to reduce MRSA. We expect trusts to act on this guidance."
What is clostridium difficile, or MRSA? I never heard of it.
We should be doing that here in the U.S. MRSA is rampant in our hospitals. Family members have been stricken with it in hospitals. It is really dangerous to be in a hospital nowadays.
When did hospitals get so dirty? Is it the overuse of antibiotics?
My cousin recently died from it..
sw
We have been doing this for over a year at the hospietal where I work.
If I were an honest liberal my response would be, "This just isn't fair. This is discrimination! These patients are victims twice over. First by a disease and now by insensitive mrsaphobics. "
Click here for some FR threads on it.
They WEREN"T already doing this? No wonder these things spread ! It's standard protocol in North America to put anyone suspect of having an unknown contagious bug to be isolated and put on technique.
We do. Unfortunately, it people who visit and wander through hospitals as if they are bus stations that spread disease around, 90% of hospital visitors don't even wash their hands after going to the washroom, or touching ANYTHING, like a doorknob.
And yet we don’t isolate those with AIDS, a far more hideous disease. A totally preventable disease … PC reigns supreme.
Our hospital here does not isolate.
It's a combination of many factors. Overuse of antibiotics is one factor, as is the reduction in cleaning staff, changes in bed usage, availability and number per room rates, and many other factors.
Put it this way: The absolute WORST place to be if you're trying to get over any illness is a hospital. Hospitals have been reduced to infection pools by the pursuit of, and aversion to spending of, the almighty dollar.
I work in a pretty fair sized hospital. If my old job (for $6/hr LESS , and more, harder work) comes up, I'm outts here!
The new (black)plague is here. We've just been extraordinarily lucky so far.
Isn't it the over use of anti-biotic everything what caused the superbugs to begin with? Isn't this like pouring gasoline on a fire to put it out?
I believe so. Initially anti-bacterial soap was used only by doctors and nurses in hospitals. Then of course it became more widely distributed and soon mothers became religious fanatics about cleanliness. Now we have allergies and kids unable to shake off even the slightest infection without help. Furthermore there are people who have used antibiotics improperly and/or get stds and other such illnesses and then use the same cure over and over and over.
Don't get me started on the idiots who helps the AIDS superbug occur. Filthy perverts.
"Hospitals have been reduced to infection pools by the pursuit of, and aversion to spending of, the almighty dollar."
Well, lawsuits by money hungry lawyers hasn't helped. You are right though about there being a recent aversion to spending money on stuff that is desperately needed.
I've read about hand washing, anti-bacterial soaps and the results.
If people wash hands for one minute using regular soap (30 seconds scrubbing with soap, 30 seconds rinsing) their hands get just as germ free if not more so than using anti-bactertial soap.
Which, of course, helps create super bacteria.
Most people barely wash their hands, if at all. Proper and frequent hand washing is one of the most important things people can do to avoid contracting illness. That and not wearing shoes in the house.
The other problem has now become the advertizing industry. Ever see those commercials of women in gleaming, spotless, white kitchens freaking out over the thought that their precious little overindulged angels just MIGHT encounter a stray germ or two?
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