I’ll be going down to the hospital later this morning to visit. Thanks for posting this.
As a long-time hospital worker, I couldn’t agree more with this post. I work for a hospital that happens to be number one in New York State for the LEAST amount of infections, but if you knew how infrequently our patient rooms and beds were cleaned — I mean REALLY cleaned — you would be shocked.
What it boils down to is money, and why it boils down to money is this: If ANY business is forced to give away its products or services for FREE to one-third of their customers, cuts have to be made somewhere. So, a person gets discharged, and two minutes later, someone else has been admitted and is laying in their bed. Was the bed cleaned in between? Nope. Just change the sheets and move on.
It’s disgusting, really.
"Bleach" wipes don't actually contain bleach. That's a common misperception that people have, because those wipes are made by the bleach company. I'm not sure how effective they are against bacteria and viruses.
Also, bleach won't kill everything. Cryptosporidium, a cause of diarrhea, is not killed by bleach and must be killed with hydrogen peroxide.
I would say, though, go ahead and bring the gifts, but include one of those hand sanitizers. (Keep in mind that alcohol doesn't kill everything, either!)
Putting sick people with compromised immune systems into dirty hospitals is a recipe for disaster. If at all possible, stay out of hospitals and doctors’ offices. They are the most dangerous places in America.
At last -- something useful for the tort lawyers to do. Provided, of course, that they can handle the necessary retraining.
In 2006, I had an accident at home that resulted in a shattered calcaneus (heel bone), broke it into 6 pieces. After surgery to screw the bone back together, the wound would not close, blood flow in that area of the body had something to do with it,so another surgery was needed to remove the metal and screws.
After the operation,the wound was worse than ever and I had a terrible infection. I was transferred to a bigger hospital, another operation. The docs determined that I had 4 infections caused by 4 different bacteria. They operated,killed every bug in there, a plastic surgeon closed the wound perfectly. Life was good, relatively. A few days later, I got the bandages off and a soft cast installed.
Two weeks later, I go to get the soft cast off and another, harder one put on. As soon as the nurse started to cut off the soft cast, I could smell it. She looked at me and didn’t have to say a word, I knew. She called a doc, they took a tissue sample.
The doc, and better, IMHO, the nurse told me that they would not say the name of the infection that I had out loud in the hospital, it was that bad. Back I went to surgery, I think I’m up to number 4 now. They installed a PIC line, which is a tube that they ran through a vein near my arm pit, through my body to a large vein in my heart. They told me that the antibiotics that I was about to take, twice a day, were so powerful, that they would collapse a smaller vein. They equated it to a large pipe discarding waste into a large river.
I was very fortunate to have a visiting home nurse who really understood the nature of my injury and how to get me healed. She saved my foot, we were getting dangerously close to an amputation.
I won’t even go to a hospital to visit anyone let alone allow myself to be admitted. I had a good doc or two along the way and several more that I never want to see again. I had several terrific nurses, and a couple who weren’t, and an awsome PT, who gave me the strength and determination to keep my foot. In my experience, give me an inspired nurse every time.
A bigger problem is all the Third Worlders who the hospitals now hire.
In some areas, Third Worlders are hired to keep salaries down (they work cheaper). In other areas, there are not enough medical professionals
Third Worlders do not have as good training, and, are not keen on the standards of cleanliness as Americans are trained.
That is a big part of your hospital infections. The more Third Worlders hired, the more infections you get
The people doing the cleaning are the lowest-status and lowest-paid employees in the entire hospital. Housekeeping is the least glamorous and prestigious department.
Probably the one that is the most critical as to whether infections develop or not, though.
Any wonder things aren’t as clean as they should be?
BTW, the “clean” they’re talking about here has nothing to do with visual appearance, though that’s important, too. A surface can be totally clean as far as our senses can detect and absolutely loaded with bacteria.
ML/NJ
As opposed to feeding them yoghurt and sauerkraut? Are these people nuts? Guess which one is cheaper?
I got admitted on Christmas Day for acute appendicitis and got sent to my room to wait on the surgery. First thing I noticed while lying on the bed was the dead flies on the light shields, so with a ruptured appendix I was standing up on the bed dumping out the dead flies from the lights, since I couldn’t stand the thought of staring up at those post-op. Good times!