Doctors, MRSA and Handwashing
I just read an article abot a doctor at Mt. Sinai Medical Center who was suspended for not complying with the hand washing rules which have been in place since September 2004 with what I find to have been disturbing results. In three years they are still working on this problem there and you can’t help but wonder what hand washing is like at hospitals that aren’t trying to comply to the rules at Mt. Sinai. I have foolishly assumed in the past that doctors would always wash their hands between patients just to protect themselves!! I have since then seen a doctor come into my MRSA infected daughter’s room and leave without ever washing his hands several times.
We have to do what they don’t. I also have noticed in a clinic I was going to that the only cleaning they did between patients was to roll out some fresh paper on the examining table. So I touch as little of any surface in a clinic as I can and wash wash wash before I leave and after I get home. If they won’t protect us we have to protect ourselves!
Posted in A Mother's Story, IN the News, Research
October 17th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Hi. I haven’t been by in a while, Rhoda, but I think of you often. And when that new study finally hit the news media I had to take a minute to visit.
About the washing? I don’t remember if I mentioned this earlier, but Hibiclens - the red surgical scrub soap that hospital surgeons use - is available at any Walmart. If you can scrape together $17 or so, that’s what the 32 oz size costs. It’s far cheaper than the smaller sizes.
Besides being so cheap?
-It has residual action. That’s why I use it before any and all medical appointments. Protects me, protects them.
-It kills virtually everything: bacteria like MRSA or regular staph, viruses, fungi, and more.
-It works *mechanically,* I think it blows them up or something, so they CAN’T BECOME RESISTANT to it.