Posted on 04/16/2011 2:51:15 AM PDT by Scanian
Hospital infections kill more Americans each year than AIDS, car accidents and breast cancer combined -- and researchers are searching for solutions. This week, a study of 153 Veterans Affairs hospitals shows that doing a simple swab test to identify and isolate the few patients carrying infection-causing bacteria can save lives. It's called screening, but even more important is cleaning. Studies are rolling in that hospitals need to be cleaner.
In fact, if you're visiting a friend or relative in the hospital, don't bring flowers or candy -- take gloves and a canister of bleach wipes.
Hospitals do an inadequate job of cleaning rooms -- so germs left behind by past patients are lying in wait. Patients are at far greater danger of infection when placed in a hospital room where a previous patient had an infection. Hospitals won't tell you who occupied the room before you.
Alarming research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (March 28) demonstrates that a patient's risk of picking up the drug-resistant bug MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is much higher if the previous occupant of the hospital room had it.
Being placed in a room where the last patient had Clostridium difficile, or C. diff for short, more than doubles the risk of getting that dreaded infection, according to a new study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (March 2011). C. diff is the most common hospital infection in some parts of America.
Patients pick up invisible C. diff bacteria when they touch surfaces in their room, then eat a roll or cookie with their contaminated hands and swallow the bacteria along with the food.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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.
Glad you liked the post.
"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.
I placed the blanket on the wheelchair seat and sat on it. The nurse said the blanket was for me to put over me, an I told her, I worked on an ambulance for a while, I brought in many people and I knew how often they wiped out and cleaned those wheelchair seats,and I didnt want my bare ass on it. She went and got me another blanket.
Remember many years ago when you went to a hospital and smelled disinfectant? Don't smell it now do you?
It's almost as bad as it was during the Civil War when they discovered cleanliness led to less deaths.
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.
Per post 11, I should also have said housekeeping probably employs more immigrants than any other department.
ML/NJ
I was hospitalized 4 times last year and I actually did hear complaints from some of the nurses about viruses they picked up and time they lost from work, etc.
Also, I’ve noticed that doctors tend to make their “rounds” very short and sweet. Connection? Possibly.
And the nicer nurses warned me about bugs very similar to the article.
Ping for later
The unions are a problem also...
The unionized nurses are lazy and insolent...
In some hospitals, surgical equipment is very poorly cleaned by surgery techs while the nurses run off to the break room instead of checking the surgery suites...
The whistle blowers are gotten rid of.
The union thug nurses don’t listen to the doctors and think they run the show.
Do you work in a hospital?
I just wanted to know how you formed your impression of nurses.
I am a nurse, and work my butt off, just like my fellow nursing workers.
As opposed to feeding them yoghurt and sauerkraut? Are these people nuts? Guess which one is cheaper?
You have to really pay attention to the labels on the bleach wipes. It has to say “with bleach.” Same for a lot of the ‘spray cleansers.’
Make your own bleach wipes. Use a half roll of heavy duty paper towels. Boil 10 parts water and add 1 part bleach. Place half roll of paper towels in an old wipes container or any container with a lid they fit into. Pour your mixture over the paper towels. Remove cardboard inner tube. Use roll from the inside out.
Nothing like those national health systems!
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