Another MRSA Death, More Heartbreak
In January, I told you about three heinous infection situations — three people who contracted MRSA from negligence and bad medical protocol. At the time, I took some major hits from providers — in effect, chastising ME for the plight of these people, and taking offense to the fact that I blamed the professionals who should have been preventing these infections to begin with.
Word came this morning from my friend and colleague, Ilene Corina, patient safety expert and president of PULSE of NY (www.pulseofny.org ) about the death of Tameka, the young woman who over a year ago contracted MRSA after surgery in a Long Island, NY hospital. Ilene herself had been called in to see if there was anything she could do to help. She observed those same professionals providing care, changing dressings, with no gloves, not taking additional precautions.
Ilene has blogged about the experience of attending the young woman’s wake, and the follow up letter she received from the NY Dept of Health in which Tameka’s name was not even spelled correctly.
My heart breaks for Tameka’s family. This sort of horror only makes me dig in my heels even further to make sure YOU, my readers, understand how to protect yourself from the same demise.
Learn about how these deadly infections spread. Understand that they can too easily be contracted — by you or by your loved ones. And please, please, please take the simple steps required to prevent them!
It begins by insisting on handwashing.
And clearly, when that isn’t done, it ends in heartbreak.
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A good friend of mine had a hernia removed and after being home about a week, her surgical incision had really swollen and one day it began draining and blood was coming out of the incision. Her daughter rushed her to the hospital and they discoved she had picked up a staff infection from the hospital when she had the hernia surgery. It was not MRSA, but they bagan giving her two kinds of antibiotics at a time and she was in the hospital for over a week. They told her it could have only happened from “skin on skin.” Someone had not washed their hands when they checked her hernia surgery they suspect.
She came home and began feeling terrible and a week later her daughter rushed her to the hosital again and she had C-Diff which is caused from an
allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics she was taking. She was so ill and was vomiting and had diaharria for a week at least, she couldn’t eat and was very sick. Finally, she was able to come home and after six weeks she is slowly regaining her strength. However, she has noticed that she is short of breath sometimes and never had anything like this before her hernia surgery.
What a time she has had. A friend of mine told me about MRSA and said that she had heard that several high school kids had gotten it and died from it. What my friend had was not MRSA.