The television new is all over the story of the CRE infection outbreak at the hospital in California. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is there filming their, obviously inadequate, method of sterilizing the gastric scope that seems to be the agent of transfer of the infection. Two patients have died and several are fighting for their lives. The news is acting like this is shocking and how could this happen?
This is not new! On January 26, PO Day 225, my blog post was about this deadly antibiotic resistant superbug at hospitals in Seattle, Pittsburg and Chicago. The article I quoted from made it clear the infection was transferred from a sick patient to other patients who were subsequently examined with the same gastric scope. The affected hospitals had learned it was not enough to diligently clean and sterilize the instrument. They had put in place a screening program to be sure the scope had not been used on an infected patient.
As you would figure, I did not have access to some privileged, private source of medical information. I was just googling around when I read about CRE. I sincerely hope the News media is just late in getting to this story and that the California hospital currently dealing with this problem took the proper preventive action back when hospitals in Seattle, Pittsburg and Chicago first reported it.
There's just no getting around it...you have to be your own healthcare advocate. I know I am not aggressive enough in questioning what will happen to me medically, surgically. The informed consent papers we sign always scare you. "Even death" is usually listed as a possibility of the
simplest procedure. Usually you are given the anesthesiologist's release as you are being prepped for surgery. Hardly the time to carefully research the possible negative possibilities of the anesthesia. It
seems as if the surgeon usually gives you a little more time to consider the risks. But basically we all figure those bad things aren't going to happen to us.
I guess you have to trust the hospital and your doctors to do the right thing. Hopefully they do.
This is not new! On January 26, PO Day 225, my blog post was about this deadly antibiotic resistant superbug at hospitals in Seattle, Pittsburg and Chicago. The article I quoted from made it clear the infection was transferred from a sick patient to other patients who were subsequently examined with the same gastric scope. The affected hospitals had learned it was not enough to diligently clean and sterilize the instrument. They had put in place a screening program to be sure the scope had not been used on an infected patient.
As you would figure, I did not have access to some privileged, private source of medical information. I was just googling around when I read about CRE. I sincerely hope the News media is just late in getting to this story and that the California hospital currently dealing with this problem took the proper preventive action back when hospitals in Seattle, Pittsburg and Chicago first reported it.
There's just no getting around it...you have to be your own healthcare advocate. I know I am not aggressive enough in questioning what will happen to me medically, surgically. The informed consent papers we sign always scare you. "Even death" is usually listed as a possibility of the
simplest procedure. Usually you are given the anesthesiologist's release as you are being prepped for surgery. Hardly the time to carefully research the possible negative possibilities of the anesthesia. It
seems as if the surgeon usually gives you a little more time to consider the risks. But basically we all figure those bad things aren't going to happen to us.
I guess you have to trust the hospital and your doctors to do the right thing. Hopefully they do.
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