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Beth Israel cited for infection problems
By adamg on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 4:28pm
The state Department of Public Health says Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center failed to adequately deal with outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant staph in its maternity unit.
Medical Center CEO Paul Levy has posted a memo on the state citation and what the hospital is doing about it. He adds all the cases have been treated successfully and none involved babies or parents in the neo-natal intensive care unit.
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Comments
Oh, god....what a mess.
Beth Israel/Deaconness, from what I understand, has long been reputed to be one of the best hospitals in Boston. Therefore, there's absolutely no excuse whatsoever for this hospital ( or any other hospitals, for that matter) for falling short in this manner and failing to do what's necessary to prevent, or at least minimize the chance of MRSA outbreaks in the first place.
MRSA was first identified back in the late 1960's, but it's much more prevalent and fiercer now than it was back then. There are a number of causes of the rise of such hospital-related infections, such as failure on the part of medical staff to wash hands before coming in contact with and touching patients, the fact that hospitals have cut down on laundry service as well as janitorial/custodial services, wearing hospital scrubs outside the hospital, and inappropriate use of antibiotics on the part of patients with ordinary non-MRSA infections (taking them incorrectly).
Moreover, Hospital-acquired MRSA infections have also helped lead to an increase in the incidence of much rarer community-acquired MRSA infections, while, which are still rarer than HA-MRSA infections, are even more dangerous and more contagious.