You will be a patient some day and what you do not know will most assuredly kill you. At the present there are myriad types of resistant bacteria in the institutions we like to call Medical Centers. This epidemic is permeating throughout hospitals and carried by the very people responsible for your care. That's right, your white clad, scrub wearing nurse and the doctor who orders all those tests. It is a fact, upward of seventy percent of healthcare workers carry a resistant strain of bacteria in their nares( nose), and hand washing and glove policies mostly ignored. How would I know this you ask...I am a Registered Nurse and I have Renal Cell Cancer which forced me to be on the other end of the needle.
I cannot count the number of times nurse, doctors, phlebotomist, X-ray, CT scan Tech, etc, did not wash their hands not wear gloves. Yes that is true...some did abide by hospital policy, but...case in point. I was scheduled for a follow up colonoscopy to make sure my cancer had not spread and for this procedure you need a patent intravenous apparatus... Yes an I.V.... My primary nurse did wear gloves initially, but missed my vein, she tired again, this time poking her index finger through the glove, to feel for a vein. She missed again, she then asked for assistance. This nurse did not wear gloves nor wash her hands, and when she missed twice another nurse came in and did not wear gloves nor wash her hands either. I was stuck a total of six times; Six. I never did see anyone wash there hands.
The other problem is nurses and doctors wear the ubiquitous stethoscope around their necks going from patient to patient carrying what ever germs from patient to patient. I never see them rubbing it down with alcohol or antiseptic ergo pathogens transferred. Now you ask, " so how do you fix this?" Honestly, I do not know. If you call your local Medical Center, you will be informed they hold sanitary procedures to the utmost regiment set by standards, and I am here to tell you it is a lie.
The nurses and doctors are contaminating patients with MRSA, VRSA, CRE, Because they won't, can't, will not, do not, have not, wash their hands, wear gloves, and follow basic policy and procedure. I know first hand how difficult it is to access a vein when you have gloves on, but I do not understand how anyone after touching Patient willfully does not wash their hands. I have walked rounds with physicians and watch them go from room to room, patient to patient never washing their hands or cleaning their stethoscopes... I finally started carrying hand sanitizer and insist they use it...some were compliant some told me where to put it.
I guess what I am going to have to do is what I have been doing all along. Be the voice for the patient and educate you of the dangers during hospital exposure. I will make a list of dos and don'ts upon your hospital admission and even give you my phone number for any questions you may have, because believe me, nurses and doctors no longer educate patients as is dictated by the nurse practice act; it's a law. Once my list is complete I will post I to every social media site and email you a list per request. I empathizes do not....I repeat, do not be afraid to say no, ask questions, demand another opinion, ask your care giver to wash their hands and any instrument used on you, tell your doctor to wash before touching you. Demand an explanation of all drugs ordered for you. If the nurse threatens you with " I guess I'll have to tell the doctor you refused", ask for the CEO of the hospital...Never sign a consent without it being read to you and you are fully informed of the risks... Do not be afraid to refuse signing until the doctor sits and explains everything to your satisfaction. You see doctors and nurses enjoy making you feel stupid, after all they are professionals...( Insert laugh here). Always ask for a copy of your record before your discharge.you must understand your time in the hospital is an inconvenience to the corporate machine that owns all hospitals. All they want is your insurance monies, or Medicare dollars and Medicaid, once they have that, they want you out of there. e.g. When you go to same day surgery and have let's say a laparoscopic cholesetectomy, ( gall bladder removal), their priority is to get your butt home. The worst case scenario is not you dying, no, it's having nausea and vomiting, unrelieved pain, low vital signs etc because this means, yep you got it...you become an admission and a stat for the review board and myriad questions for the case managers to deal with. They hate it when you have to be admitted. Nurses and doctors will do anything to get you home.
They have taken away drugs that relieved nausea because the side effect was sleepiness, a big no- no for same day surgery. They want you wide awake and going home ASAP...Another change is, you use to receive a drug called Versed, (a conscious sedation medication), for some procedures which is great because you are still conscious , you just don't remember the procedure...now they use propophoyl, the same drug that killed Michael Jackson...why? Because it metabolizes quickly without post operative drowsiness like Versed does. The reason, so you can recover faster and go home. Forget that 1500 people a year die from this drug which is considered anteshesia and has to be administered by a Nurse Anesthetist... Scary stuff and not for your convenience but for the hospitals.
Gone are the days of hand holding, back rubs, skin checks, education, and kindness. People are going into nursing because it provides a mediocre income with little effort. And now that experienced nurses are a costly overhead, hospitals hire new graduates with no critical thinking skills and place them in high risk areas such as ICU,CCU, CVU, Neo Natal, E.D., and so on... It takes eight to ten years to develop theses skills and now nurses are taking care of critically ill patients with no knowledge base... Just ask your nurse how long they've been a nurse and if they say I just graduated, demand a new experienced nurse. It's your life, and to them you are a product on a assembly line...you are the conveyor belt patient and your life is in your hands.
Be smart, be educated, be leery, be wary, ask questions, demand answers, and most of all be safe...
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