MEDICAL MISTAKES IN HOSPITALS in the USA, according to a piece in NaturalNews, 205 Americans die every day because doctors arent washing their hands.Medical mistakes by doctors are the third leading cause of death The good news is that things are improving. Back in 2010, the figure was 247 deaths a day . . . But thats only the tip of the iceberg. In 1999 the Institute of Medicine reported that 98,000 people died each year from preventable errors in hospitals. Medical mistakes now the THIRD leading cause of death A recent report from the Journal of Patient Safety states that as many as 440,000 patients die each year from hospital errors. Medical mistakes are now the third leading cause of death in the USA, following only cancer and heart disease. What are the statistics for the UK, one wonders. Its likely that theyre comparable, but the chances are well never know. Getting figures about iatrogenic deaths (thats doctor-caused fatalities) in this country is like pulling teeth. One of the reasons for this, were told, is that they might be misinterpreted by journalists and politicians. Well, well, well. Talking of doctors spreading disease, a report by UCLA—The University of California, Los Angeles—has called for doctors to stop shaking their patients hands. The reports authors claim that even though the handshake is a deeply established cultural custom, it can spread disease between patients. Pathogens Health care workers hands become contaminated with pathogens from their patients, and cross-contamination occurs through routine patient contact. The argument about medical hand washing has been raging since the middle of the 19th century. At that time a quarter of the women giving birth in hospitals died of what was then known as childbed fever (puerperal sepsis). The culprit turned out to be a bacterium called Streptococcus pyogenes. As long ago as 1843 the American physician Oliver Wendell Holmes discovered the cause: women were contracting the infection from their own doctors. He said the doctors needed to wash their hands between patients. This suggestion didnt go down well with the medical profession. Almost ten years later Dr Ignaz Semmelweis was working in the maternity wards of a Vienna hospital. He noticed that the mortality rate in the delivery room which was staffed by medical students was up to three times higher than in the delivery room staffed by midwives. The difference was so dramatic that women were terrified of giving birth in the students room. Contaminated hands The students, it turned out, were coming straight from their lessons in the autopsy room to the delivery room—without washing their hands. Nobody—even Semmelweis—had made the connection between germs and disease at this point, even though a close friend died after cutting his finger during an autopsy. Semmelweis asked other doctors and the students to wash their hands with a chlorinated solution before they examined women in labour. The mortality rate promptly dropped to under one per cent. Youd think that this pioneering medics career would have taken off with a roar and his discovery would have become standard practice. But youd have been wrong. Because of professional jealousies, from the hospital director downwards, nothing happened. Semmelweis died in 1865, the same year that Scottish surgeon Joseph Lister started to spray a carbolic acid solution during surgery to kill germs. And he was big enough to share the credit. Without Semmelweis, my achievements would be nothing, he said. Mistakes by doctors can also happen with back pain—see page 15 of The Natural Back Pain Cure Book at thenaturalbackpaincurebook
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 17:16:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015