I thought I would combine these two together because not only do they rank up there with the dirtiest places but they also have the distinction of being the most dangerous places. What are they? They are hospitals and nursing homes.
Have you walked in a nursing home lately? FYI - when you first walk into a nursing home, you enter on the first floor. These are the up and about lucid patients and there is a pleasant odor emulating from the hallways. Don't be fooled. Before placing your loved one in a nursing home check the upper floors. Those are the floors where the sickest are kept...you are greeted on those floors with the smells of urine and feces and the sounds of moaning and crying. You see either people slumped over in wheelchairs with a blank dull expression on their face or people who will try to draw you into their room to help them. I know. I worked in a county nursing home for 7 years, 3 years part time weekdays full time weekends from age 15 to 18, then 4 years full time nights until I graduated from nursing school when I was 22. The chances your loved one will get an infection are high in nursing homes. The CDC reports that over two million people contact nosocomial infections when they are hospitalized, resulting in over 80,000 deaths. Unless the nursing home or hospital staff strictly adheres to standard (or enhanced) precautions, people will die. Those precautions are as simple as thorough hand-washing, the use of disposable gloves, and routine environmental disinfection. Those precautions work, but only if people consistently use them. I rarely see the personnel do any of the above. The number of MRSA (antibiotic resistant bacteria) is very high and MRSA infections have been becoming increasing rampant in hospitals and nursing homes since first recognized in 1961. Beware: they are now in our backyards. Just walking in a nursing home and touching anything puts you at risk. So keep a can of Lysol spray in your car. Before placing your loved one in a nursing home, look at state records on infection and make sure the nursing home hasn't been cited for deficiencies. Ask about staff turnover. The higher the rate of turnover, the higher your loved one is at risk. Look at the staff taking care of your loved one. Do they speak English? Many are foreign nurses. If at all possible, keep your loved one alive and have them live with you. Hire help to come into your house.
Hospitals have just as high rate of MRSA infections and 'hospital aquired infections' as nursing homes....after all, where do the nursing home patients get transferred when they get sick? Now I will say that hospitals are cleaner than nursing homes. The medical personnel is trained and I personally have never seen a nurse enter a patient room without donning gloves and then washing their hands before leaving the room even if dispensing medications. The OR is the place to worry. With increasing cutbacks in hospital payments, services are being cut while insurance companies rank in the Fortune 500 and CEO's of said insurance companies rake in millions in compensation. It is at the expense of you. It used to be standard to have operating room RN's, circulating RN's, and a RN assigned to each and every operating room. Now you are lucky to get what is termed a 'OR tech'. The training for a 'OR tech' is 3 months, high school diploma. They don't know the instruments. They don't know sterile technique. They can't assist the doctor. You are lucky they show up or know where things are. There is a high turnover of OR techs and it has been reported they are sometimes recruited from housekeeping. My husband refuses to have them in his operating room. Instead he works with other podiatrists and they buddy up on each other's surgeries so they have someone who knows what they are doing. If the assistant gets paid, fine. If they don't, then no big deal. It is at no charge to the patient. It is for our patient's benefit.
Schedule your surgery for the am...never in the afternoon or evening. Again look up through your state websites and find out all you can about your hospital. Check their infection rate. Check their JCAHO standing. US News publishes a list of hospitals who reach a level of excellence. Avoid the others. Here is their link: http://health.usnews.com/sections/health/best-hospitals
All of us are part of the problem and part of the solution. There should be a worldwide 'Neighborhood Watch' for hygienic procedures. Viruses and bacteria have lived here long before we showed up and they will remain here long after we are gone. In the meantime, we have to co-exist.
Now, go wash your hands and have a nice, clean day....And remember, Lysol is your friend.
