Infectious Disease Protocols

[emzhengjiu]

Have we become complacent about infectious diseases at least until now in the U.S.? My daughter's godmother died a year ago.  She had several underlying medical issues.  At the end she was in isolation in ICU for droplet protocols. To visit her, we had to gown, mask and glove.  While there, I routinely saw several doctors exam her without any protective gear.  On one occasion, I saw a doctor leave without washing his hands or using the sanitizer.  I mentioned my observations to the charge nurse, but as far as I know nothing was ever done.  I didn't follow-up because we were grieving her loss and because I wasn't sure of the protocols.  We live in the Dallas area, but my daughter's godmother was in a different hospital, not Presbyterian.  With the problems surfacing at Presbyterian Hospital, I'm concerned we don't take infectious disease protocols seriously in general.  This isn't directed at the nurses involved in Mr. Duncan's care specifically.  I feel deeply for them!

 

edited:  spelling

[swimmermom3]

I have been waiting to ask my sister, who has worked as a nurse in intensive care units, about this very issue.  I suspect she is going to roll her eyes and say that somebody didn't follow all of the protocols and that the hospital is covering their backside.

[hornblower]

Hand hygiene rates in hospitals are frequents abysmally low. It is a huge problem.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/nyregion/hospitals-struggle-to-get-workers-to-wash-their-hands.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[m0mmaBuck]

I haven't worked in a hospital since 1998 but I can tell you that people were complacent back then, even in the face of TB, HIV/AIDS, MRSA, VRSA, and several other infectious diseases that we dealt with on a daily basis.  Personally, I made sure I followed the precautions for each patient to the letter but I can also tell you that many others did not.  Some of the doctors were, IMO, the worst offenders and would move from patient room to patient room without even so much as washing their hands. We had times where you could follow an infection from one patient to another by looking at which doctors had treated them.  It was awful.

[JoJosMom]

I suspect that you are correct.  The things for which we employ protocols, although nasty, are nothing like what is possible (i.e. Ebola.)  My little anecdote:  Post-DD, I was in a very bad way.  One consequence was multiple wounds.  While in ICU, the wounds swabbed for the presence of MRSA/VRE (they never got into my bloodstream or I wouldn't be typing this.)  I was treated as an "isolation patient."  Sort of. By some people.  (And, honestly, those who ignored the protocols-like my OB-had good reason.  Their view was that those particular germs are everywhere living harmlessly on healthy people's skin and are of no risk to a healthy person.) I suspect that my little anecdote is one of many that contribute to complacence.  I really fault the CDC for not sending a team to the hospital in Houston.  Given the level of care deemed necessary in the cases of the people evac'ed from Africa (at a special unit in a special hospital), I find it incredible that they just assumed a normal hospital could handle it. On their own.  Yikes.

[Katy]

A lot of people in the health care industry don't take MRSA all that seriously anymore and if you ask why you'll be told because so many studies have been done that show things like MRSA are common in the environment, and that almost everyone has some but most people's immune systems can control it.  That doesn't mean people are so complacent about things they actually consider dangerous.

 

If you want to know if a hospital is good or not, ask every doctor and nurse you meet what hospital in the area they would put their family member in. 

 

I've worked in a lot of different hospitals and I would say I'm pretty impressed with every Catholic hospital I've worked at (no, I'm not Catholic).  I might not like some of their politics, but it seems like they treat staff well and give them proper safety equipment.  CHI hospitals have already supplied their workers with hazmat suits, for example, and a different chain of Catholic hospitals near me announced they were prepared to immediately treat any suspected cases of ebola as an airborne disease.  I wonder if this is because not long ago most of them were still run by nuns.