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By Dr. Mercola
According to the 2011 Health Grades Hospital Quality in America Study,1 the incidence of medical harm occurring in the United States is estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors each and every day.
Hospitals have become particularly notorious for spreading lethal infections. According to the most recent report2, 3 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), hospital-acquired infections now affect one in 25 patients.
In 2011, an estimated 722,000 patients contracted an infection during a stay in an acute care hospital in the US, and about 75,000 of them died as a result of it.
That amounts to just over 205 deaths from hospital-acquired infections every day of the year! More than half of all hospital-acquired infections were contracted outside of the intensive care unit. The most common hospital-acquired infections include:
- Central line-associated bloodstream infections
- Catheter-associated urinary tract infections
- Surgical site infections after surgery
- Clostridium difficile infections
Other infectious diseases can also easily spread in medical settings, where those who are actively ill mingle with others who have compromised immune systems. For example, in early February, a measles outbreak suddenly cropped up in the northern Manhattan area of New York City.
A New York epidemiologist blames the outbreak on medical workers’ failure to control the contagion within their facilities. According to a recent New York Times4report:
“Dr. Jay Varma, the health department’s deputy commissioner for disease control, said the department’s investigators were looking at whether some of the 20 confirmed cases, which are concentrated in northern Manhattan, might have resulted from exposure in medical facilities.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases and can be spread through airborne respiratory droplets even two hours after an infected person has left the room.
‘We know a number of people were exposed and possibly got their infection either at a doctor’s office or at an emergency room where they went and it took more time than it should have for them to be put in an isolation area where they couldn’t possibly infect anyone else,’ Dr. Varma said.”
Read Whole Article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/04/joseph-mercola/stay-out-of-the-hospital-2/
