Health Care Professionals, please check in here,

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

I was talking to someone in the health care field today, about something she called the medical industry's "dirty secret. It was an acronym, perhaps "MSRA" but I could be wrong about that. She says it is vectored in surgical suites and in the rooms, is not treatable with any medicine available, and is most usually fatal. She said that the medical care industry is sitting on disclosure of this, because it could well cause the widespread closing of hospitals, with the cocommetent demolition of them to the ground. At the very least, It would necessitate destruction of the surgical suites. She also said that the disease was spread, largely, by doctors moving from hospital to hospital, to perform surgeries.

She also said that the medical industry is trying frantically to keep this hushed up.

Have you heard of this? Can you add more? It sounds particularly dire.

[Ayesha]

1. It is MRSA

I'm a mental health professional, but I work with cancer patients so I've heard of this. Here's more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRSA

[Mika]

2. Checking in.

SSSssshhhhhhh!!11!!

:hide::yoiks:

[Tess49]

3. It's extremely common. Around here anyway. I had a friend who died last week after

a minor surgery. He contracted MRSA in an area hospital. Hospitals will from time to time close down wings, or a number of rooms to decontaminate them. This stuff is almost bullet proof. It's a form of Staph that has become drug resistant.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. She also said...

That most of the decontamination schemes really don't work, or not well at all. Another of the things they keep quiet about.

[Tess49]

7. I was discussing this with my son, a physician. He says that most

health care workers are colonized with this. We are carriers. One reason we are cautioned to be so diligent about hand washing, and gloving up with every patient.

[cynatnite]

12. I learned ages ago to be very careful...

came up PPD positive early on when I was a medic in the army. I had been exposed to someone with tuberculosis along the way. Since then I've been very careful and still am even though I don't work in the health care industry anymore.

[cynatnite]

9. The best way to avoid cross contamination...

is by washing hands between patients. It's not a big secret. Being careful when going from one patient to the next prevents the spread of more than just this one infection. It was hammered into us to wash before and after each patient.

We dealth with patients with these kinds of contagious infections. It became habit to wash when entering the room and wash again when leaving.

You also have to limit the visitors, use the right solution when cleaning and continue to wash before and after whether you gown or not. Also, some of these severe infections are airborne so not all these work. The best you can do is use a combination of them all in order to keep as much control over it as possible as to not only harm other patients but also the healthcare workers, too.

[cynatnite]

4. I've heard of it...

It's a serious staph infection. Antibiotics like penicillian have no effect. They have to use other methods of treatment such as isolation and other strong antibiotics to treat it. The CDC does have a set of guidelines. Here is the PDF file:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/pdf/ar/mdroGuideline2006.pdf

Here is a little bit of info:

Although Noskin and others report that a patient infected with MRSA is five times more likely to die than other patients;<2> it is not clear that patients who are infected with MRSA have an increased death rate. Wyllie et al. report a death rate of 34% within 30 days among patients infected with MRSA, while among MSSA patients the death rate was similar at 27%.<3>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus#External_links

When I worked in the medical field we had a few patients with this and gowned up whenever we went into their rooms. This infection has also been found in schools as well from what I understand. I know that the protocols overseas are different than here in the states, but I don't know the full details. I've been out of this field for a while now.

I've never heard of it being something that's hushed up either. I know healthcare workers have an obligation to not discuss the patients, their care or diagnosis with others outside of the healthcare setting.

Hope this helps.

[CAG]

6. "It" could be a number of things; MRSA, multi-drug resistant Pseudomonas,

multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter, some other Gram negative rods, or C-diff diarrhea. She is over-generalizing with statements like "not treatable with any medicine available" (although the number of effective antibiotics is getting smaller and smaller), and "is most usually fatal", though. These hospital-acquired infections are a serious problem, but I don't think the medical industry is interested in "hushing them up", but minimize the infections as much as possible. Hospitals lose money, tons of money, with each hospital-acquired infection, so their only incentive is to prevent these infections as much as possible.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Well...

To be honest, this is what they are teaching the students in a course she recently took. She just reported what she learned there.

[cynatnite]

10. It's scary sounding learning about it...

and easy to get overwhelmed by the nastiness of these bugs. They are to be taken very seriously, but there are ways to counter them. An ounce of common sense can go a long way in controlling cross contamination and keeping it from spreading to other patients and workers.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

14. I just have to say...where are the evidence based, peer reviewed studies LINKS?

A course someone TOOK?

This is unattributable...you're just saying it....


Deep breath...:rant:

:-) MKJ

[BeanCounting]

13. Just curious...........

When you say "Hospitals lose money, tons of money, with each hospital-acquired infection, so their only incentive is to prevent these infections as much as possible". How so?

My husband has been battling MRSA for over a year now. He caught it in the hospital. The bills are pouring in, and they don't indicate than anyone is losing any money for all the treatment and subsequent hospitalizations that MRSA has caused him. So your statement does have me wondering what you mean.

[cynatnite]

17. Lawsuits for one...

If a patient acquires a severe infection they can sue the hospital. I've heard of it happening many times. Also, many patients can't afford to pay what the insurance doesn't cover. The hospitals wind up having to absorb the costs no matter what's wrong with them. When it comes to these infections the hospital stays can be very long and that leads to losing money, too.

Hospitals have to pay whatever the medical supply and pharmaceutical companies charge. That's not counting what's not covered by Medicare and other insurance companies. Not all hospitals are rolling in the dough.

[CAG]

25. This is a very simplistic explanation, but its the best I can do in this forum;

The hospital gets reimbursed by diagnosis related groups, or DRG's, in other words, in general, if a patient comes in with diagnosis X, the hospital gets reimbursed a set fee, which may pay for a usual care of a 4 day stay. If something delays the course (ie, complication that lengthens the hospital stay), the hospital eats some of the cost. Of course, there are ways around it, such as listing the hospital-acquired complication as one of the secondary DRG's, but as these add up, generally the hospital will at some point be taking a loss.

[aquart]

11. Ah. Just the way they used to spread childbed fever.

[NurseLefty]

15. Increasingly more common, and more than one strain.

We see more patients turning up in the hospital with MRSA. Not all is acquired in the hospital - a community acquired strain is emerging as well. We see many elderly who have cultured positive for MRSA, as well as IV drug users with cellulitis (an infection under the skin) who are MRSA positive.
In the hospital setting, patients with MRSA have to be in contact isolation (gowns and gloves worn by staff and visitors). Even if the patient's infection clears up, it may be several months before he/she fully clears the bacteria from his/her body.
Besides hospitals, other institutions are susceptible to increased spread of MRSA - nursing homes, prisons - anywhere people are in close quarters.
MRSA can be fatal, not mostly not - it needs to be treated very proactively, like any other bacterial infection. Even the not-so-super bugs can kill us.
Whether recovering from surgery or having cut yourself working in the garden, remember:
Do all you can to keep your wound clean. Wash your hands. Watch for signs of infection (more complex depending on infection but some of the basics here) - pain, swelling, redness, foul discharge, fever - especially if increasing). When in doubt, call your doctor ASAP, call a consulting nurse hotline after hours if available, or get to an emergency room!
I second the references above to Wikipedia and the CDC - good places to learn more...

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

18. I am not surprised.

One thing you will find in the elderly and drug user populations is weakened and compromised immune systems. Also, ADL's are not exactly excellent in those communities either, in a lot of cases.

[NurseLefty]

20. Nursing homes worry me in particular

Too few staff who are underpaid, caring for too many nursing home residents - who share the same living quarters - and with our demographic shift and ballooning demand for nursing home care, this is a BIG problem.
Sad but one of a MILLION problems we face in health care!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

21. I agree about the Nursing Homes.

When my mother was on the downward slide to the end of her life, she was in several. Two, in particular, were just rancid. There is no other way to describe the conditions. Yet they still charged premium prices. There is another one like that around here, very near to where I live. Smelly, nasty, dank and not a breeze stirs in the place.

Little backwoods nursing homes. Why they are in the backwoods may inform one.

[NurseLefty]

19. And, about being in the hospital -

Hold the healthcare workers caring for you accountable! Upon coming and going to your room, if they don't wash their hands or use Purell (hand sanitizer, in pumps in many hospital rooms these days), remind them - NO - insist they do so!
It is easy to demonize our hospitals, but bear in mind that most healthcare workers work their butts off caring for too many patients. They may very well forget hand hygiene. But, they should thank you for reminding them!

[rainbow4321]

16. Most of our patients have it...

Even if they have a history of it, we throw them into isolation. Not that the docs follow the isolation protocol...they walk in the room w/ no gowns, minimal hand washing. Portable xray machines come and go, they don't get washed down after they are in an MRSA patient's room. If I had to guess, I'd say most of the hospital walls/floors/counters have MRSA on them.
Probably safe to say that if you pick a health care worker who works directly w/ patients and do a nose-swab you would find they are carrying MRSA. Hell, last time I donated blood and saw my blood card, it said that I was CMV+ (one can be a carrier but not have the full blown illness)...nurses get exposed to some nasty bugs at work.
Visitors are horrible about hand washing. I see them leave their loved one's room and head for our mini kitchen, the elevator, all over the place. With them goes MRSA. Just something to think about the next time you are in a hospital and push the elevator button.
MRSA can be anywhere..in a wound, in urine, in sputum. It stays on hard surfaces/equipment for a long, long time.
But it is not limited to hospitals. There was a local lady who got it from getting a pedicure at a salon. The basin that she put her feet in was the source of infection.
A nurse at our facility got it so severe that she ended up in the ICU. She tried to file it under workman's comp and the hospital said to her "PROVE that you got it at work".

[Warpy]

22. It's MRSA, but the rest is bullshit

because it's been in the health news for many years, even in the stuff on "health" pages in newspapers and magazines. There is no woo-woo tinfoil hat coverup, never has been.

The initials stand for "methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus." It means some strains of the staph bug, a fairly common one for all sorts of infections, have developed immunity to all penicillins and most other antibiotics.

However, it is NOT usually fatal and we still have one medication that will kill it: Vancomycin.

The most troubling news about this particular bug is that it's showing up in the general community. It's out in the environment now and can be picked up as a skin infection.

As for causing the demolition of hospitals, that's sheer insanity.

It's only a matter of time before we start seeing a lot of strains resistant to Vancomycin, too. There is one antibiotic that's being kept off the market and labeled experimental because a couple of cases of Vanco resistant staph have been found. The cases were isolated, though, and there have not been any more.

Tell your friend to start reading reliable sources. She's a veritable encyclopedia of misinformation on this one.

[NurseLefty]

23. Good points

You're right about tinfoily hysteria over this one. MRSA is a big problem, to be sure, but it's treatable and no cause to bulldoze a hospital.
It's worrisome, however, that the almighty vanco is becoming less infallible to the mutating strains of bugs out there. (How about some VRE?)
I will say that finally, at least docs are getting more stingy about prescribing antibiotics on demand, ie, for cold symptoms. Too bad we went for years w/ major antibiotic overuse, causing mutating strains we're now plagued with.

[cynatnite]

24. about over-prescribing antibiotics...

A good doctor friend of mine told me some years ago he cut down half the prescriptions he was writing. He took more time talking with his patients and started recommending other ways of dealing with colds and all rather than just writing out a script for antibiotics.

I took that to heart with my own kids and I wound up riding out the fevers they would get. If it got over a 103 and wouldn't go down I went to the doctor. Other than that, they got the liquids and whatever else made them feel better. We hardly touch antibiotics now unless it's absolutely necessary.

When my oldest daughter had her kids she was running to the ER at every drop of a hat and they gave her antibiotics. It took several conversations with her to slow her down and she finally did.

Fortunately, I have some medical care experience and know what to look for. Also, when in doubt, we have an excellent service called 'Ask A Nurse'. They have been wonderful in answering questions when we've had doubts.