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In U.S. hospitals, an estimated 1 in 20 patients pick up infections they didn't have when they arrived, some caused by dangerous 'superbugs' that are hard to treat... Machines that resemble "Star Wars" robots and emit ultraviolet light or hydrogen peroxide vapors. Germ-resistant copper bed rails, call buttons and IV poles. Antimicrobial linens, curtains and wall paint. While these products can help get a room clean, their true impact is still debatable. There is no widely-accepted evidence that these inventions have prevented infections or deaths.

Imagine having a laundry service that caters to a large health care facility. The usual delivery of dirty bed linens arrives and sits around for 48 hours. Finally, a tired worker drags the large duffel-type bag over to a workstation and starts to yank the contents of the bag out onto a table or the floor. All of a sudden, something unexpected tumbles out. It’s not hospital slipper socks, nor a damp towel. It’s not even a standard crumpled up pile of blue Chux. Wrapped in a sheet like a shroud is a fully formed stillborn baby. baby_wrapped_up_in_blanket_close-up_IAI007000423 That scenario...

65-year-old man says nurse in her 20s raped him at Philadelphia hospital The man claims the woman assaulted him on Feb. 27 while he was at Temple University Hospital recovering from a motorcycle accident. A 65-year-old man says a young female nurse raped him while he was recovering from a motorcycle accident at a Philadelphia hospital last month. The man, who has not been identified, said a Temple University Hospital nurse in her 20s entered his room at around 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 27, offered to bathe him and then sexually assaulted him in a bathroom, NBC Philadelphia reported. Police...

Brasilia, Mar 28, 2013, Reuters: A Brazilian doctor who was charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths, according to a Health Ministry investigator. Prosecutors said Dr Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba. De Souza, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested last month and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder.

Probably few among the House of Israel chanted "Next Year in Jerusalem" more fervently and with more passion this Passover than members of the Biton family, who marked this year's Festival of Freedom by celebrating this year's seder in a hospital hallway. The family was denied the privilege of spending the holiday at home due to a road terror attack several days ago left the family’s youngest child, 3-year-old Adelle, in critical condition. Mother Adva and sisters Na'ama and Avigayil were wounded in the crash caused by the rocks hurled at the family's vehicle as well. The family was joined...

Five doctors at a Brazilian hospital have been suspended after they were accused of covering for absentee colleagues by using fake silicone fingers with their prints to fool biometric machines... touching her finger to the device, then using two fake digits to do the same for colleagues, and taking delivery of slips of paper indicating they had in fact clocked in to work. That way it looked like there were doctors on duty when there was just one. ... there might be as many as 300 hospital employees who do not exist, except for fake fingers with their prints, but...

Hospitals need to take action against the spread of a deadly, antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria kill up to half of patients who are infected. The bacteria, called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae or CRE, have increased over the past decade and grown resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics, according to the CDC. In the first half of 2012, 200 health care facilities treated patients infected with CRE. "CRE are nightmare bacteria," CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement. "Our strongest antibiotics don't work and patients are left with potentially untreatable...

Members of the New York State Nurses Association gathered at the Capitol on Saturday to protest the closure of community hospitals. The group also opposes a plan for an "experimental" for-profit hospital pilot program laid out in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget proposal. The protest, in front of the state Department of Health headquarters in the Corning Tower, comes on the heels of a vote earlier this month to close Brooklyn's cash-strapped Long Island College Hospital, which is run by SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and the news that Brooklyn's bankrupt Interfaith Medical Center will merge with another hospital. ... New York...

The Obamacare legislation contains no safeguards to stop taxpayer funding of abortions or abortion businesses. Now, a Pennsylvania hospital has indicated it will stop delivering babies thanks to Obamacare. The Obamacare law is causing physicians to cut the number of patients they see or leave their practices entirely — resulting in problems like this one. As AP reports: A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can’t afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms. The Windber...

A son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, who was acquitted of criminal charges in a maternity ward scuffle, is suing two nurses who publicly said that he kicked them in the crotch during the assault. Douglas Kennedy is alleging defamation and malicious prosecution by nurses Cari Luciano and Anna Lane. He said their statements to police and on NBC's Today show held him up to 'ridicule and scorn' and led to his prosecution. The lawsuit, filed on Friday in White Plains, New York stems from Kennedy's attempt a year ago to take his newborn son from Northern Westchester Hospital...

Americas: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is dying of cancer in Havana, in a live demonstration of Cuba's vaunted socialized medical care. He went there instead of Brazil because he wanted to make a political statement. What irony. As party cronies hover at his bedside, Cuban officials bark orders to the government in Caracas, and red-shirted Chavistas hold vigils, all signs are pointing to an imminent exit for the Venezuelan leader who controls a huge part of the world's oil. He's going out exactly as he wouldn't have liked — helpless and at the mercy of doctors, a far cry from the...

Please say a Prayer for my mother. I don't think I've ever asked some one to pray for some one else before, but she's in a tough spot. If it is her time to go it will hurt terribly, but as Catholics and the fact that she is the most caring, loving person I have ever met, I know we will meet again in a better place. I'm also extremely upset with the hospital, and I don't want this to happen to others. On the day after Christmas, my mother was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with Pneumonia. They...

Scholarly studies have found that the more hospitals that exist in a country, the more people die in hospitals. This alarming conclusion shows that the United States, with the highest number of hospitals, has the most people die in hospitals. Countries with few hospitals have few die in them, a country fortunate enough to be without hospitals would have no one die in a hospital. This leads to the inescapable conclusion that we should ban hospitals in order to prevent hospital deaths.

Birmingham police are on the scene at Saint Vincent's Hospital this morning, where somebody fired a gun early this morning. We have now learned that a police officer and two hospital employees were injured during that shooting, and they have been taken to UAB hospital. Their injuries were not life threatening. The gunman was killed during the shooting. Police say that the public is not in any danger, and that the situation is under control. Our reporter on the scene says additional nurses have been called in to work.

Our jobs were hanging by a string. We were like, ‘All right. If they’re going to fire all 12 of us, fine. But this is against what we believe God wants us to do.’ We didn’t come into this profession to do [abortions]. Alliance Defending Freedom’s cover story in their latest issue of “Faith & Justice” covered the story of twelve nurses who stood up against a hospital when their faith and ethics were on the line. Here is a part of their story, but I would encourage you to read the entire account, found here. Nurses who were protected...

WEST ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO. (KTVI) – A Mercy Hospital employee is facing disciplinary action after refusing to get a flu shot. The employee did not want FOX 2 to reveal her identity. “I am scared to get the shot because of the proven adverse reactions people have had,” she said. The hospital adopted a mandatory flu shot policy this year. “It is in the best interest of our patients,” Chief of Quality at Mercy Hospital Keith Starky said. “We know that influenza is a leading killer for the elderly and it is just not a risk we can take.”...

Mental Hospital Voter Sign-Up QuestionedPatients registered without local election officials' OK By Don Carrington Oct. 26th, 2012 RALEIGH — Cherry Hospital, a state-run adult inpatient psychiatric facility in Goldsboro, welcomed a federally funded nonprofit organization to conduct a voter registration drive of mental patients, likely a violation of state law. Moreover, a memo from a hospital administrator indicated the nonprofit, Disability Rights North Carolina, assisted patients in completing absentee ballots, which may have been illegal as well. **SNIP** North Carolina General Statute 163-226.3 makes it a Class I felony for anyone other than the legal guardian or close relative of...

SIERRA VISTA — The U.S. Border Patrol agent wounded in the shooting that resulted in the death of another agent yesterday morning has been released from the hospital, the agency announced this morning. The injured agent was airlifted to a Tucson hospital from the scene, about seven miles east of Bisbee and five miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, after he and two other agents were shot at by unknown assailants. Agent Nicolas Ivie, 30, was killed in the attack. The third agent was not injured during the incident, which occurred around 1:30 a.m. when the agents from the Brian...

The fastest way to go broke in America is to go to the hospital. These days it seems like almost everyone has an outrageous hospital bill story to share. It is getting to the point where most people are deathly afraid to go to the hospital. All the financial progress that you have made in recent years can literally be wiped out in just a matter of hours. For example, you are about to read about an Arizona woman that was recently charged $83,046 for a 3 hour hospital visit. How in the world is anyone supposed to pay...

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. – A town judge settled evidence issues Thursday and set a trial date in the case of a maternity ward scuffle involving a son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Douglas Kennedy, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of physical harassment and child endangerment, will go on trial Oct. 22, said Mount Kisco Town Judge John Donohue. The charges stem from Kennedy's Jan. 7 attempt to take his 2-day-old son from the maternity ward at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco. Nurses tried to stop him, citing hospital policy, and two claim he injured them....