My father in law died of MRSA about 8 years ago. The truth is that he was very old, very frail, and had a very major operation. He was terribly weak and the MRSA took hold. Although recorded as an MRSA death, he would not have lasted long if he hadn't got it.
On recent visits to hospital (my son had to have a minor op last year) it seemed very clean. In fact the major source of contamination was probably the visitors. When I was in the time before that (around 1991) the place was absolutely filthy, so it has improved a lot, although obviously the MRSA has become more widespread over the years.
Mind you, years back, before the cleaning was 'outsourced' they used to be kept spotless.
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A lot of people don't know this! - Everybody carries BOTH MRSA bacteria and CANCEROUS cells to some degree on thier bodies all the time. All it takes is something (often minor) to trigger activity and off it goes, in the case of Cancer even a slight knock can trigger it, in the case of Mrsa, an open wound from an injury or operation is perfect.
When i went to a NHS hospital for my Heart op, i was literally admitted the night before, monitored overnight, pre-med ed and then at the last minute cancelled and discharged due to an emergency case. Six months later i was admitted to a Private London hospital, three days prior, batteries of tests, including swabbing of body areas ;-) for the Mrsa bacteria were carried out, and nothing left to chance.
With regard to this thread, my point is, there is no need for hospitals to be dirty, no need for hospitals to cut corners, they can work to exacting standards when private customers are paying for it out of thier own pocket, so they should be able to do it when paid by the majority via the government.
Somebody mentioned it earlier, when Matron (H.Jakes) went, so did her standards.
Billy
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The thing that gets me is that the government seem to think that any road death is unacceptable and avoidable, and that there is no such thing as an accident. Well, obviously a road death is pretty unacceptable to the people/family involved, but life has risks and when you think of the millions of vehicle movements/miles every day in this country, an amount of accidents is unavoidable. I think the current level of road deaths is too high, but you can never reduce to zero, and so there has to be a trade-off.
People die in trains and buses, but they are not persecuted in the same way that cars are.
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as far as i'm concerned, for both disciplines i.e. hospital care versus road deaths... you need to concentrate on what matters most:
not the politics, not the cheapest, not head in sand
Hospitals...nurses need to nurse. If that means feeding someone or clearing up some mess, then so be it. A senior nurse needs to be in charge of a ward and if something needs cleaning, get it done straight away, not wait for a contract cleaner on the minimum wage the following morning. There needs to be enough nurses to do this effectively. Get rid of the glut of managers, they don't clean things or feed an elderly patient.
Car accidents... relying on the 'Speed Kills' propoganda is flawed, because it is only a small part of what causes an accident. It will probably have some benefits, but those benefits will reach a natural limit, because blitzing Mr or Mrs Average, via speed cameras, does not address the real problem as they don't generally drive like complete idiots...and are legal which means their car is registered and traceable, unlike the oik.To improve things further there needs to be a blitz on some of the other causes e.g. dangerous driving, unregistered vehicles, no insurance, no driving licence, poor vehicle maintenance, drink or drug driving, etc. Many many accidents that end in death are caused by 'oiks' who don't give a hoot for the law...when caught, they need to be LOCKED UP, not given some daft half way penalty that to them is no penalty at all.
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Hospitals...nurses need to nurse. If that means feeding someone or clearing up some mess then so be it. A senior nurse needs to be in charge of a ward and if something needs cleaning get it done straight away not wait for a contract cleaner on the minimum wage the following morning.
Modern nurses are degree trained, and many think it beneath them to dirty their hands by cleaning a patient or a ward. I could go on but with due deference to the moderators, I won't.
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People die in trains and buses but they are not persecuted in the same way that cars are.
I have to disagree. Public transport is generally many times safer than private car (in terms of deaths per million passenger km, or whatever). And when there is a train/plane etc crash there are massive and quite exhaustive investigations.
My son is about to take his driving test and I have two daughters coming up to the age to learn. I am actually quite pleased that there is an emphasis on road safety. Road traffic, one way or another, presents probably the biggest safety threat to my kids. On the evening of May 15th one of my son's friends was killed in a car accident, naturally his family are devastated. Another of his friends wrote off his father's car earlier this year, just 3 weeks after passing his test. Thankfully he was uninjured.
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>> >> >> People die in trains and buses but they are not persecuted in the same way >> that cars are. >> I have to disagree. Public transport is generally many times safer than private car (in terms of deaths per million passenger km or whatever).
Was watching a programme on surviving a train crash and it quoted European stats which showed that rail travel in Europe (including the UK) was as safe as air travel and 20 times safer than road travel - its quite right that we need to concentrate on making travel safer... so we should be concentrating on the carnage on our roads!
Edited by b308 on 23/05/2008 at 13:27
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Mind you years back before the cleaning was 'outsourced' they used to be kept spotless.
Ah yes, outsourcing, that when you pay a private company to supposedly do the same job much cheaper than previously, with the private company needing to make a fat profit also. Doesn't take a genious to work out what the outcome of this will be. To simplify, 1)Outsourcing company bosses get Aston Martins, 20 they pay immigrant workers at or below the minimum wage to do the work, and 3) as long as nobody looks at the standard of work, everybody is fat and happy !
Edited by Roly93 on 24/05/2008 at 22:04
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