Help! Our hospitals are filthy!
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According to an article by Betsy McCaughey in the U.S. News &World Report Best Hospitals issue hospitals in the U.S. are not inspected for cleanliness.
I would love to hear what others have to say about this – especially health and medical bloggers. Does the article seem accurate to you? Reasonable? Overreactive?
Personally I found it alarming, but I’m a scientist and I don’t work in medicine so maybe I just don’t understand the situation well enough. Please enlighten me.
Here are a few quotes from the article:
“The Joint Commission, which inspects and accredits U.S. hospitals, doesn’t measure cleanliness. Neither do most state health departments, nor the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“Sad to say, cleanliness is not a priority for hospital administrators or most medical professionals. “
“A new University of Maryland study shows that 65 percent of physicians and other medical professionals admitted they hadn’t washed their lab coat in at least a week, even though they knew it was dirty. Nearly 16 percent said they hadn’t put on a clean lab coat in at least a month.”
“In a recent Johns Hopkins Hospital study, 26 percent of supply cabinets were contaminated with a dangerous bacterium, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and 21 percent with another stubborn germ, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE).”
“Stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, and EKG wires are used on successive patients without being cleaned. Studies published as long ago as 1978 warn that blood pressure cuffs frequently carry live bacteria, including MRSA, and are a source of infection. In a newly released British report, one third of blood pressure cuffs were found to be contaminated with Clostridium difficile, a germ that can cause lethal diarrhea if it enters via the mouth. “
“Hospitals once tested surfaces for bacteria, but in 1970, the CDC and the American Hospital Association advised them to stop, saying testing was unnecessary and not cost effective.”
“Asked whether bacterial levels should be measured, Wise [Robert Wise, Joint Commission] answers: “You can only ask hospitals to do so much.”
For more information read the article: Why Aren’t Hospitals Cleaner? and visit the web site of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (chaired by the author of the article).
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3 Responses to 'Help! Our hospitals are filthy!'
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on July 31st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I work in the medical field, and while the article may be overreactive, it is true that work needs to be done in the hospitals to reduce patient infections. While there is no quick fix solution, more and more medical personnel are becoming more aware of the problem and doing more to combat this epidemic. I have seen doctors and nurses wearing the same lab coats for days, and this is also a problem. I guess we all have to roll our sleeves and work harder at keeping hospitals cleaner and better staffed with well-paid personnel who care about their jobs.
on August 7th, 2007 at 1:41 am
[…] Trisha at Women’s Health Research News is shocked by the filth found in the average American hospital. […]
on August 14th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Thanks Leslie for stopping by and commenting!