Archived News of the Week

EEEEK!

Two happy little editorials in the New York Times got me going this morning. What did I learn? First of all, never, never stay in a hospital unless you absolutely have to. No elective surgery, folks. Too dangerous. Secondly, don't keep birds or travel to South East Asia. Third, I am a bit wary of getting on a plane today at 2:23.

Furthermore, in February the CDC declared that it will not support the growing demand to make hospital infections rates public, which is a shame because if you should need, god forbid, to be hospitalized it would be nice to know which hospital gets the typhoid mary label. Don't let this stop you. Ask until you get the answers you need.

When I gave birth to my second child in 1970, after a very nice, uncomplicated birth with my recovery occurring in a lush private room with a view, I suddenly got terrible diarrhea. I staggered to the little john, and on my way back to bed almost fainted. I managed to find my way to bed and got under the covers whereupon I started some bone shaking, teeth chattering chills, then a minute later, I got really really hot. You get the picture? I weakly summoned the nurse, who took my temperature, saw the 105 1/2 degrees and called Code Sortof Blue. Crash carts with IV's of penicillin, ice thingies in my groin and armpits, worried looking docs shooting me up with valium and hustling my baby out of the room. What did I have? A staph aureus infection. But I prefer to call it a "Staff" infection. At that time - 35 years ago - the infections were readily treated with heavy-duty antibiotics and I recovered after a week in the hospital. But now?

Nothing works. There is now a bug out there called M.R.S.A. or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus and over 60% of the hospital staph infections are now M.R.S.A. If you draw the unlucky staph card, you either die or for the patients who "do survive M.R.S.A., [they] often spend months in the hospital and endure several operations to cut out infected tissue."

The reason for all the deaths? Unbelievably, it's poor hygiene. Too few hospitals in our country are meticulous enough - in hand washing, the cleaning of equipment and hospital rooms, the use of disposable gloves and gowns, and especially the "testing of incoming patients to identify and isolate those carrying M.R.S.A." Frequently, stethoscopes and blood pressure monitors are contaminated with live bacteria, yet doctors and nurses almost never clean these before listening to a patient's chest or taking their blood pressure. Clothing is frequently a vector for M.R.S.A and when doctors lean over a patient or examine them, they could deposit the bacteria.

Here's another nasty one: Clostridium difficile. "This common and seldom life-threatening infection is often caused by fecal material from one patient entering another patient's mouth." What tha'! How the heck. . .! O.K. So, what happens is this: ". . . this infection is spread because nursing assistants wear the same clothes while doing two jobs: emptying bed pans and delivering food trays." which is probably the most compelling reason not to eat hospital food.

The second editorial this morning in my Happy Times, was co-written by Barack Obama, democrat from Illinois and Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana. They are desperately worried about the Avian Flu as we all should be. So far it has remained in South East Asia, but hey, the world is so small now, the avian flu is just a plane ride away and "a killer flu could spread around the world in days, crippling economies in South East Asia and elsewhere." (Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC)

International health experts say that two of the three conditions for an avian flu pandemic in Southeast Asia have already been met: 1) a new strain of virus called A (H5N1) has emerged and humans have little or no immunity to it. 2) this strain can jump between species. The only remaining obstacle is that the A(H5N1) has not yet mutated into a form that is easily transmitted from human to human. However, there is a reported case in Thailand where a mother transmitted it to her daughter. Both died.

Luckily for us, A(H5N1) has not been found in the United States - yet. But in an age where you can board planes in Bangkok or Hong Kong and arrive in Chicago, Denver or New York in hours, we must face the reality that these exotic killer diseases are not isolated health problems half a world away, but direct and immediate threats to security and prosperity here at home."

Now that I have filled your day with joy, what am I going to suggest? Not much. Obviously, don't go into a hospital unless you have to, and if you do, take extreme caution. And for the bird flu? Frankly, I am not traveling to South East Asia, and will take extreme precautions to stay well when I travel, by using natural anti-virals, essential oils and wearing my mini-ozonator around my neck. And I guess I will pray, too.

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