Doctors demand sealed wards for MRSA cases

[Horse with no Name]

http://society.guardian.co.uk/mrsa/story/0,15825,1446490,00.html

Hospitals may need to treat patients who carry the superbug MRSA in entirely 'sealed' units to protect other patients, a group of senior microbiologists has warned.

>>>>snip
The microbiologists have warned that patients should be separated into those who test positive or negative for the antibiotic-resistant bugs, and that those who carry it should be kept in an isolated unit. There they would be treated by a dedicated group of doctors and nurses, ensuring that the chances of staff carrying the bacteria - on clothes or skin - to other wards are reduced.


You won't see this in US hospitals but IMHO, it is very prudent and the ONLY way to curb these hospital acquired infections which kill thousands of Americans every year.

[etherealtruth]

1. This was becoming a major problem 15 years ago...

Patient isolation within the general population obviously didn't work.The suggestions here make sense.

[amber dog democrat]

2. As someone who has HAD MSRA - and is in remission..

I can tell you its serious stuff. Maybe there should be separeted wards for it.
We picked ours up in Fiji or New Zealand or Thailand... and had to deal with subsequent cycles of infection for 2 and a half years.

I think it all started with my wife getting a spider bite. Makes you wonder.

[MuseRider]

3. Good idea.

The old isolation units with all the garb and super scrubbing technique. A pain in the rear to work in but essential to keep things from spreading.

[Horse with no Name]

4. These units should be treated like labor and delivery or surgery

where you dress in a room when you get there and leave these clothes behind before you go home.

[MuseRider]

6. Yes.

We used scrubs in the ICU and I would imagine they still do. When we had isolation patients we covered in special disposable gowns, slippers, gloves, masks, head covering and all of it got thrown away in special containers in the room with the patient. It was awful to work like that so we would spend most of our time in the room rather than going in and out. I do not remember a case of any particular infection going from one room to the other but then we were actually staffed well enough then that we could be left with one patient. I doubt that is the case these days.

[mom cat]

5. More info at this link:

http://society.guardian.co.uk/mrsa/story/0,15825,1433103,00.html

[Warpy]

7. When I left nursing practice a year and a half ago

I worked on a surgical unit. Patients in that hospital would get readmitted to whatever unit they were discharged from, so anyone with a wound infection would be admitted to our unit along with the recovering surgical patients. When I left, all four private rooms were MRSA rooms, necessitating dressing like one was going on a moon walk before entering the room and discarding the disposable gowns and gloves on the way out of the room. Sealed MRSA units would have made a great deal of sense, with hospital scrubs to be changed into at the beginning of a shift and changed out of at the end of a shift, and already overworked nurses wouldn't be changing clothes ten times a shift to care for infected patients. The patients would get better care from nurses who visited more frequently, without having to change clothes between patients.

As to where those infections came from, MRSA is now showing up outside hospitals. It's in our environment now, and a lot of people are colonized with it without even knowing it. Surgery or illness lowers their resistance to infection, and the bug starts to multiply.

[Horse with no Name]

8. What I felt was an interesting parallel

disclaimer: I am NOT going to use a broad brushstroke and paint all doctors with it--but will say most.

We are fed the garbage that socialized healthcare is inherently "bad" for the patient. Yet, in our country, generally the only time doctors band together it is for the betterment of their practice--tort reform, physician based healthcare facilities, etc--and RARELY, if ever do they band together for the welfare of the patient.
Very telling, IMHO, that these physicians who are based in a socialized medicine country, advocate for the patients.

[oscar111]

9. ICU entry req'd to all to check out of hosp? I saw that, i think

got a tooth pulled by night dentist who used hosp room.

to leave, they made me sign out. I had to walk into a big room off the Emergency entrance ambulances used, i suppose it was for a sort of ER/icu combo.

the darkish big room had about ten beds, wigh beeping scopes showing heartbeat.
I still wonder about the folly of casual patients having to walk into an ICU, bring flu or whatever might be in the shedding stage before any symptoms.

what sort of room was it? any experts?

The hosp is one of the biggest.. whole city block.. religious hosps in town. Has many dr office complexes around it. Dates back a century. But staff incompetent. I had to call the dentist myself after waiting for staff to, for an hour. I woke him up.

[Horse with no Name]

10. sounds like where they park ER patients that are non-critical eom