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March 04, 2005
More On Filthy NHS Hospitals In The UK
Here is a follow up to: Filthy NHS Hospitals
Chris Gupta
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Have met with my Niece again on the second of March 2005-03-03
She has informed me that last week two more elderly patients returned from Russell's Hall hospital, Dudley in the West Midlands. And both of them had the super bug MRSA.
Furthermore, One of the staff of the same nursing home has now had it confirmed that she has contracted MRSA, But not from one of her elderly people, whom she cares for. She contracted it while undergoing relatively standard abdominal surgery. She could not understand why her recovery from the operation was not forth coming and after 2 months post operation, concluded that she believed that she was never going to get better to her own Doctor.
While in the Doctors surgery, she happened to glance at the computer screen, and to her horror she for the first time read that she had contracted MRSA, and asked the Doctor to confirm her observations, which he duly did. She asked him why he had not told her that she had this disease. His reply was that he believed that she did not need to know. She became very angry and again confronted him on the fact that she could have passed this highly contagious disease on to her family and friends, because she did not know. He said that this was unlikely?
He also added, that she should not worry as this was why she was being cared for by the same hospital that infected her, and that this was the reason that she was taking so many pills.
Now, I don't know what you all think about this total neglect of duty and lack of common sense on behalf of our Wonderful National Health Service. Even if this was one isolated case of people not being informed about the type of infection that they carry.
If you are coming to the UK for a holiday or on business, it may not be the type of culture you intended to sample, so please try to avoid becoming ill or injured and requiring the attentions of UK Health Care, or you may be going home in a body bag, or worse, you may be going home with one or more of the most dangerous human diseases known.
Something has to be done about the state of our health care! The Government made promises that the waiting lists would be reduced substantially before the next election. Perhaps this is how they intend to achieve the reduction? Influenced by the array of Super bugs that lurk in the filthy squalor.
Many blame the overuse of antibiotics for the success of the super bugs. I blame the lack of hygiene and the absence of common sense. Handing out antibiotics for viral infections including the common cold is about as useful as war and famine, yet this was practiced for many years in the UK, fuelling the drug cartel's massive profits. But only a few years ago our hospitals were clean, the wards were run by Maitrons breathing fire on anyone who tried to disobey their strict cleanliness rules. Sadly today, when basic hygiene should have been the frontline of defence, our trusted health industry finds it more profitable to address the problem of disease after it has infected a massive number of people.
We now have an emerging epidemic of scabies in our hospitals and nursing homes. Urinary tract infections are rife throughout the wards and acid resistant gut bugs have become immune to the array of current antibiotics. Rather disconcerting when farmers empty their un-treated septic tanks on their farm lands to shave a few £'s off their budget.
Anonymous
See also:
Big Bucks Battling Super Bugs
Photo Gallery of Bacterial Pathogens
The Big Picture Book Of Viruses
posted by Chris Gupta on Friday March 4 2005
updated on Saturday September 24 2005
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2005/03/04/more_on_filthy_nhs_hospitals_in_the_uk.htm
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Readers' Comments
Two-thirds of hospitals are failing to meet cleanliness standards, surprise spot-checks have revealed.
The Healthcare Commission inspected 99 NHS and private hospitals during unannounced visits to prevent "late clean-up operations".
In the worst hospitals, inspectors found food on the floor, body fluids left on equimpent and graffiti on walls.
The commission inspected a selection of hospitals from both previously poor and good performers.
The inspectors looked at medical equipment, beds, sinks, bedpans and toilets, as well as checking for spillages, blood, general stains and dust.
There were 16 hospitals which had serious problems with cleanliness and 43 others had much room for improvement.
Worst cleanliness offenders
The commission said that standards were markedly poorer in NHS mental health hospitals, which made up all six of those which fell in the lowest band - indicating serious and widespread problems.
Simon Gillespie, head of operations at the Healthcare Commission, said that the findings showed too many hospitals were failing to perform.
"If a hospital has dirty and poorly maintained facilities, patients will have little confidence that it can implement the more sophisticated precautions that are needed to prevent infection," he said.
The commission is giving all the hospitals inspected detailed individual results to help them make improvements.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Steve Webb said: "This report is a wake-up call to a complacent Government that warm words and task forces are not enough to end the scandal of dirty hospitals.
"Basic hygiene is not an optional extra, it should be central to what is expected of every part of the NHS.
"Given the concern about superbugs, it is shocking that such low hygiene standards still exist in some of our hospitals, especially those treating some of the most vulnerable people in society."
One hospital is not included in the results as it is disputing its score.
Posted by: Andrew K Fletcher on December 15, 2005 12:21 PM
Superbug hospitals named and shamedDavid Batty guardian.co.uk, Thursday May 22, 2008 Article history
MRSA bacteria magnified x9560 by a scanning electron microscope. Photograph: Corbis
The hospitals with the highest number of deaths linked to superbug infections were today named and shamed by the government.
A report by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) identified George Eliot hospital, in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, as having the highest number of patients who died from the superbug Clostridium difficile, with 235 deaths between 2002 and 2006.
This equated to 3.62 of the 6,486 deaths over that period involving C difficile infections.
Derriford hospital, in Plymouth, had the highest number of deaths due to MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), with 94 deaths between 2002 and 2006.
But Maelor hospital, in Wrexham, north Wales, had the highest proportion of deaths from MRSA over the same period, with 1.35 (79 deaths) involving the superbug.
Other hospitals with high numbers of deaths caused by C difficile over the same time included Walsgrave hospital, in Coventry (233); the Royal Infirmary, Leicester (203); Birmingham Heartlands hospital (177); Sunderland Royal hospital (152) and Musgrove Park hospital in Taunton, Somerset (148).
The other worst hospitals for MRSA deaths included Royal Sussex County hospital, in Brighton (75) and Addenbrookes hospital, in Cambridge (68).
Christopher Cefai, a consultant microbiologist at Maelor hospital, said the problem with MRSA was "no worse" than in any other hospital in the UK.
He said the figures in the ONS survey were due to the hospital taking an unusually rigorous approach to recording deaths linked to MRSA. "The hospital took a decision several years ago to name MRSA as a cause of death when it occurred.
"We might have been the only hospital in the country at the time to record that MRSA was involved in deaths. There was no legal requirement to do so."
The ONS figures do not represent deaths from C diff or MRSA but show only that it was mentioned on the death certificate. Nor do they show where the infection was picked up.
Graham Tanner, a founder of the National Concern for Healthcare Infections patient group, said: "It should be remembered that these figures are about real people, and our sympathies go out to their families.
"We feel these figures are an underestimation by at least one third, with the actual number of people who die as a result of healthcare-associated infections masked by the fact that doctors do not rigorously apply guidelines to the completion of the medical certification of cause of death."
Mark Enright, a superbug expert at Imperial College, in London, said C difficile and MRSA were likely to be "with us for the long term" despite a high-profile government programme to combat their spread.
The government last year ordered a "deep clean" of every hospital in England, which involved scrubbing and disinfecting hospitals a ward at a time. But there was a 0.6 rise in the number of cases of bloodstream MRSA - to 1,087 - during October to December 2007 compared with July to September.
"We might just have to live with a higher level of infections for the foreseeable future," Enright said.
Earlier this year, the ONS said there had been a 72 increase in deaths linked to C difficile between 2005 and 2006.
The infection, which causes severe diarrhoea among patients whose resistance has been weakened by antibiotics, was mentioned on 6,480 death certificates in England and Wales in 2006, compared with 3,757 in 2005.
More than half registered C difficile as the underlying cause of death, while the rest mentioned it as a contributory factor.
The number of deaths linked to C difficile was nearly four times more than deaths involving MRSA, which fell slightly in 2006 after rising for 10 years. Most of the deaths were among people over 85 who had had courses of antibiotics to treat other medical conditions.
The antibiotics can kill helpful bacteria in the patient's gut that would normally provide resistance to C diff infection.
Posted by: Andrew K Fletcher on June 22, 2008 05:11 AM
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