Superbug epidemic expands

The American health care system surely stands alone among modern nations in making people sicker than they already were.

The Seattle Times reports that MRSA, a potentially fatal drug-resistant superbug, is "spreading here at an alarming rate" - largely through hospitals, ironically enough.

Eighty-five percent of Americans who get MRSA get it at a hospital or health care facility. In the state of Washington alone, the number of hospital patients known to be infected with MRSA increased 33 times in the past 10 years, to a staggering 4,723. This statistic was covered up until a Seattle Times investigation blew it wide open.

Government hospitals for veterans screen patients for MRSA - which has eliminated almost all MRSA cases in these facilities. But in the money-driven health care system that serves civilian America, screenings are rare. No community hospital in the whole state of Washington screens every patient.

One of the reasons for this refusal to screen is astounding: Hospitals are afraid that screening would show which MRSA patients acquired the pathogen while at the hospital - which would result in the hospital being sued. In other words, if a hospital won't stop the spread of MRSA on its own grounds, they don't want to get caught.

In addition, major hospitals have been caught exhibiting unsanitary practices. At one facility, a nurse fed pills to a patient after the pills were contaminated by being spilled on the floor. (When dealing with hospital-borne illnesses, there is no 10-second rule.)

I used to think the health care system was here to cure, not to sicken - but here we are.

(Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008396215_mrsaday1.html)