HELLO. It's called an opinion. I have a right to despise people who use their family members death for financial gain and free care. I have the right to be cold. I'm an RN and have kept people in contact isolation until those MRSA cultures came back negative. No one has EVER died from MRSA at my hospital, I know it CAN happen, though. People get the proper treatment and hygiene is stressed! I hate that people have to project their grief on medical staff- and try to end someone's career over something that's relatively rare.
Most people won't DIE from it- I'd be worried if I was a pt who was 1) Immunosuppressed, 2) Chronically Ill 3) Has an open wound that isn't covered and treated 4) Has invasive central lines.
One stud from the CDC says:
"There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in the study, for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000. That would translate to 18,650 deaths annually, although the researchers don't know if MRSA was the cause in all cases.
If these deaths all were related to staph infections, the total would exceed other better-known causes of death including AIDS _ which killed an estimated 17,011 Americans in 2005 -- said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft of the Los Angeles County Health Department, the editorial author.
A survey earlier this year suggested that MRSA infections, including noninvasive mild forms, affect 46 out of every 1,000 U.S. hospital and nursing home patients -- or as many as 5 percent. These patients are vulnerable because of open wounds and invasive medical equipment that can help the germ spread.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/10/16/mrsa.cdc.ap/
Do you know WHY deaths from MRSA exceed those of AIDS? Because of advances in antiretrovirals (AIDS medications) that prolong the lives of HIV/AIDS pts. Also, AIDS pts are also susceptible to MRSA, because their immune systems are unable to fight that nasty bacteria, so that's what some of the AIDS pts die from.
Point is, I'm cold, and I have a right to be cold to people who spread fear from their own negative experiences that do NOT accurately reflect reality. Try reading a few of my OTHER posts and you'll know where I came from!
