The AARP Bulletin reported on hospital caused illnesses. There are at least 2 million Americans who contract infections while they are in the hospital. Of these, about 90,000 die. Hospital infections are the 6th leading cause of death.
At this point five states require hospitals to publicly disclose their infection statistics. They are Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Unfortunately, we have more effective laws to make sure our cars are recalled when there is even a slight defect versus our being able to know about the number of unnecessary deaths occurring in our hospitals.
Some steps you can take if you are going into the hospital include making sure any staff coming into your hospital room to touch you, wash their hands. While this sounds simple many doctors, nurses and other staff members are not doing it. So…a staff member comes into a room, point them to the wash basin first.
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