Why is it not big news that hospital born infections now kill an est. 90,000 per year.?

Question

This is more than die from HIV and cancer together per year. This is almost TWICE AS MANY AS WERE KILLED IN VIET NAM OVER A TEN YEAR PERIOD using airplanes, tanks, ammo, man power, land mines, grenades, warships, guns and rifles, rockets, etc. Viet Nam killed an ave. of 5,000 (50,000 over 10 years) a year compared to Hospitals sloppy in house care killing 18 TIMES AS MANY.

Where is the outrage? The target is the elderly, the sick and the young. 2.3 million go into hosptials each year, and poor health care while there leads to infections that kills 1/4 of these people who entered these institutions with their trust. Where are those alphabet soup agencies paid to protect us from such madness? Stats came from NBC broadcast today.

the_only_solorose, we aren't talking world wide, that's 90,000 LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY ALONE, with a population of less than 300,000,000. I guess if one wanted to extrapolate that to a six billion population, then we'd see figures approaching 2 million world wide dying of infectious diseases EVERY YEAR!!!

Well Gumdrop Girl, it is so nice that one of our tax CONSUMING public servants dropped by. As a protector of the health and welfare of the populations you are paid to protect, then perhaps a review of the work of Ignaz Semmelweis should be in order, not only for yourself and other paid public servants in the same field of endeavor, but for the places you visit on a daily basis to check on. Maybe then we might begin to address this problem in a more realistic and human manner??

Hey Bacteria Boy, if patients went to
hospitals that had no doctors, they'd be closed. They exist because Doctors ARE THERE! Sure patients bring in disease. NO secret there.

In the old days, when people were smarter, they followed the teachings of Ignaz Semmelweis. What he learned through trial and error, NO ONE, INCLUDING DOCTORS, had ever known before. What he learned can be practiced among staff AND VISITORS. It is called looking out for the patient who is unable to look out for themselves.

Semmelweis learned that if EVERYONE, who comes into contact with ANY patient, just WASHED THEIR HANDS THOROUGHLY, then we probably wouldn't have disease, or if we did, it would be minimized.

Have the visitors wash THEIR HANDS!!! AND WEAR A MASK, IF THEY ARE SICK. This IS NOT rocket science. It's called patient care.

Oh, and germ boy, smoking is bad for the health.


Again, I refer you back to I
Without doctors most people who would have gone to hospital would die.

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Answer 1

get ... a ... CLUE. then go get a life.

Hospitals are places where we concentrate the sick and contagious. Why the hell are you surprised that nosocomial infections happen???

Guess what! the elderly, the sick and the neonates are the ones who can't fight off infections and have higher case fatality. Of course they die of nosocomial infections!!! Is the Pope Catholic???

Your outrage is misplaced. It isn't as if hospital staff go around pouring bacterial slurries on people and making them ill. No. The simple act of caring for patients can lead to transmission of illnesses. There are protocols in place to minimize these risks, but at the end of the day, these things happen. Yes, germs float in the air. They come in from dust particles. These things do exist in hospitals. Patients can get sick from germs in the environment, even if that environment is in a hospital. Hospital visitors are sometimes stupid and do things like sneeze near patients.

I deal with hospital outbreaks sometimes in my job. Things like Norovirus (viral gastroenteritis) spread like wildfire because they are very contagious, especially among people in confined spaces. The best you can do is damage control.

Answer 2

Most people who die of nosocomial (hospital aquired) infections had it before they entered a health care facility. Anyone can be a carrier of a disease or infection that is not active. Most deaths occur when they person is a carrier of an inactive form of disease. When they are in the hospital they are obviously sick. This means they have a compromised immune system, and it may have caused the disease to produce and effect.

Examples of thes are your C.Diff. and M.R.S.A. anyone can carry them and not be sick. But when your health deteriorates and you can't fight it off, you will get sick.

As for phnemonia aquired while in the hospital ( I'm almost positive that was probably included in the stats.) Only certain measures can be taken to prevent it. If a person is on a ventilator they run a huge risk of phnemonia. There is not much that can be done to prevent it.

I am guessing that this accounts for a large number of the deaths that are included in the stats. But you are correct, some of these could be prevented by such simple measures as proper handwashing skills ...


(ps I work in critical care)

Answer 3

I'm going to take a shot in the dark here...I think it's probably because people realize that hospitals are running over with infection. That statistic is really not that shocking.

Answer 4

I say bravo gum drop girl.
Do you realise that a vast majority of hospital acquired infections actually come from visitors? So put that in your pip and smoke it.

Without doctors most people who would have gone to hospital would die. Gimp.

Answer 5

on a planet with over 6 BILLION people, 90,000 is a drop in the bucket. Not right, not fair, but there it is, and I can guarantee you that a great many look at it just that way.

Answer 6

yes, nosocomial infections are increasing in rate. Sometimes hospitals "hush hush" these incidents because it will definitely ruin business.

Answer 7

Becausethe number of people treated w/o infection is much, much, bigger

Answer 8

its no surprise due to over using antibiotic soaps and antibiotics in meat.

Answer 9

numbers lost in translation to

"it bothers me" from "no problem, mon"