As a society, we are trained to go to the doctor when we have a health problem. Ah, but what if going to the doctor introduces you to new health threats? This is exactly what is happening in hospitals when it comes to nosocomial infections.
I’ll be the first to admit it. I’ve never liked hospitals. They feel soulless to me. I’ve always considered my opinion just a personal feeling, but the news coming out of hospitals lately definitely makes one wonder at least a little bit about whether they are a place to get better or not.
The big issue is not medical malpractice or some other subject the media likes to latch onto. Instead, the massive problem is currently nosocomial infections. What exactly is this? It is an infection you pick up in the hospital environment while being treated for something else. Oddly, the NFL is providing us with some classic examples of this problem.
The Cleveland Browns have been experiencing a wave of problems with infections secondary to other problems that seem to require surgery. Nobody is sure if the infections are incurring in the hospital or at the team facility, but no less than five players who have received medical treatment have come down with some type of infection that had nothing to do with the original injury they incurred in a game.
The big scare with nosocomial infections is MRSA. MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. For us regular folks, the term means a bacteria that is no longer treatable with methicillin antibiotics. Unfortunately, that accounts for most of the antibiotics we currently use. MRSA kills over 19,000 people a year, but it flies under the radar since nobody wants to create a scare about going to the hospital.
Popular books of fiction are all about hooking you with a plot that has a fantastic result. These days, there is a niche of books devoted to bioterrorism. Read one and you can practically envision Osama Bin Laden with a grin and needle in hand. While scary, the sad fact is most of these books gloss over the fact we have a major health problem here and now in our hospitals. Nosocomial infections are killing people in our hospitals as you read this.
Could any book have a plot scarier than that? You might think so until you have to check into a hospital.
John Grimes is with AllTerrainco.com - makers of Hand Sanz which kills the MRSA staph infection in less than 15 seconds. Read the lab report evidence at AllTerrainCo.com.
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