Ask a Healer Holistic Wellbeing Series

Avoiding Deadly Infection While In The Hospital - Getting Sick While Getting Well
© Neva J Howell, All Rights Reserved

One of the reasons I may seem so anti- anything that ends you up in a hospital is because the number of people who contract infections and die while in hospitals is absolutely staggering.

An estimated 90,000 a year, according to the last statistics I read, die from infections they catch while in the hospital.

Be sure you get what I'm saying here....

These are not people who were hospitalized because they already had an infection and then died of infection-related complications. These are people who caught an infection AFTER going in the hospital for something else and died from an infection they caught in the hospital.

Used to be that if I knew someone going in the hospital, I also knew they'd likely get a staph infection. It was so common even back 10 years ago that it would have been laughable if not so serious an issue.

Not Just Staph Anymore:

Of course, most doctors, even a decade ago, probably didn't suspect that staph infections could mutate to the nasty MRSA's of today.

However, persistent voices from the alternative medicine community have been putting out the warning about antibiotic resistance for longer than that.

Because of the well-publicized school cases of MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant strain of staph infection, that have been in the media lately as well as several well-documented MRSA outbreaks in hospitals, there's a lot more attention to this issue of antibiotic resistance than there used to be.

In fact, a hot laser of focus has been aimed at hospitals everywhere and it's common now to see signs assuring patients that it is alright to ask if hospital staff have washed their hands before they are touched by hospital staff.

Even now, with the threat of MRSA and occasions of staph infection so virulent that no antibiotic is effective, I still do not feel hospital staff take the situation as seriously as they should because the main reason sited for this absolutely unacceptable number of infection-related deaths is what I consider a shocking one .....

Doctors, nurses and hospital staff who still do not wash their hands between patients EVERY TIME.

Almost 100,000 people suffer infection-related deaths in hospitals every year because doctors, nurses and hospital staff who STILL do not wash their hands between patients EVERY TIME.

I realize how busy nurses can get and I realize they may sometimes forget to wash their hands but believe me, it is in your best interest to make sure that they either wash their hands in antibacterial soap or use hand sanitizer before they touch your IV or catheter.

If you don't see them use the hand sanitizer when they come in, ask them to do so, particularly if they will be handling your IV or catheter. If they are good nurses, they will appreciate it. If they are not, they may get offended; if so, it's good to know you have a nurse with an attitude. Ask for another nurse if you have to do so, to get safe care.

If you are a woman preparing for surgery, please read this important information from Healthy Women and the Women's Center for Mind/Body Health

If the surgery you are preparing for is gastric bypass surgery, read this


Health Care Disclaimer: Hospital staff are acutely aware of patient concern over this issue of infection-related deaths in hospitals. Though it may still feel a little awkward to ask that the nurse, or even the doctor, sanitize their hands in your presence, you have the right to request that in any hospital today.