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Doctors, wash your hands
Thousands of hospital
patients die each year from infections simply because of bad medical hygiene.
By Betsy McCaughey, BETSY MCCAUGHEY is the founder and chairwoman of
the Committee to Prevent Infectious Deaths (www.hospitalinfection.org).
February 3, 2007
THE
The saddest thing about this story, however, is how often it happens.
Every day in hospitals across the
Astoundingly, over half the time, physicians and other caregivers break the
most fundamental rule of hygiene by failing to clean their hands before
treating patients, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Caregivers often think putting on gloves — without cleaning their hands first —
is sufficient, but this simply contaminates the gloves.
Cleaning hands, while essential, is only the first step. Stand in an emergency
room and watch caregivers clean their hands, put on gloves and then reach up
and pull open the privacy curtain to see the next patient. That curtain is
seldom changed and is often covered in bacteria. The result?
Caregivers' hands are soiled before reaching the patient.
Research shows that nearly three-quarters of patients' rooms are contaminated
with dangerous bacteria, including the dreaded methicillin-resistant
staphylococcus aureus. These bacteria are on
cabinets, counter tops, bedrails, bedside tables, IV poles and on the floor
under the bed. Once patients or caregivers touch these surfaces, their hands
carry disease-causing bacteria to other patients.
Stethoscopes, blood-pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters
and other equipment spread bacteria. Doctors and nurses rarely clean
stethoscopes before listening to patients' chests, though the American Medical
Assn. recommends it. When the inflatable blood-pressure cuff is wrapped around
a patient's bare arm, is it cleaned first? Virtually never, though a recent
study in the journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology indicated that
77% of blood- pressure cuffs were contaminated.
Too many hospitals practice first-class medicine but third-rate hygiene.
Rigorous adherence to hand hygiene and sterile procedures can almost eradicate
many types of infections. At
In
Secrecy is largely to blame. Until recently, hospitals did not have to make
their infection rates public. Fortunately, more than two dozen states,
including
Unfortunately, Californians cannot get that information. The California
Legislature has enacted a law — SB 739 — that only requires reporting of which
hospitals follow certain procedures deemed relevant to preventing infections.
That may be helpful, but Californians should be able to get more.
Can hospitals afford to improve hygiene and provide better training for
caregivers? They can't afford not to. Patients who contract infections have to
stay in the hospital days or weeks longer and sometimes go through repeated
operations to cut out infected tissue. Hospitals don't get paid fully for the
extra time, treatment or medication (nor should they). Hospital infections add
more than $30.5 billion a year to the nation's health tab in hospital costs
alone. That's about $3 billion in
To get a sense of the tragedy of unsound hospital hygiene,
compare it with an issue that gets far more attention — lack of health
insurance coverage. The
Copyright
2007 Los Angeles Times
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