Helpful advice on protecting yourself from hospital infections

If ever admitted to a hospital, we expect to be released in better health.  The last thing we anticipate is for the hospital stay to make us sicker.  But for up to 10 percent of hospital patients, that’s exactly what happens. 

Many of us may assume hospitals are sanitized and scrubbed clean of germs.  Not necessarily.  One of the biggest breeding grounds for infections is found in hospitals. Many infections are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.  And a superbug is the last thing you want to take home with you after a hospital stay. 

These potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria are more widespread in U. S. hospitals than thought. A recent study found what is dubbed the “nightmare bacteria” better known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), to be on the rise.  This family of germs is responsible for about 9,300 infections and approximately 600 deaths every year in the U. S.  CRE is one of the most feared strains of bacteria because of their resistance to carbapenems which are last-resort antibiotics used to treat drug-resistant infections.

This study looked for where people had cases of CRE by sampling four U.S. hospitals – three in Boston and one in California – and they were able to identify a wide variety of CRE species.

The worst thing about CRE is that it can be transmitted from person to person without causing symptoms and seems to have a way of teaching other CRE species of becoming drug resistant.

What does this mean for anyone who has to spend time in a hospital?  Hospitals are well-known cesspools of germs. Just going to visit someone hospitalized can be risky of picking up an infection.  The good news is there are precautions one can take to protect yourself from superbugs.  Whether you are a visitor or the patient in a hospital, follow this list of recommendations to help reduce your risk of picking up a superbug at the hospital:

·      Make anyone who walks in your room wash their hands before they touch you– This means everyone from your doctor, nurses, clergy, friends, and your family.  Ask them to clean their hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based sanitizer.  Even if they insist they have already, they could have recontaminated their hands by touching a germ-laden door handle.  Hand-washing is the single most important way to prevent infections.

·      Get your flu shot – This should be done during the fall before influenza season begins.  If you were to get the flu without having had a flu shot, the possibility of picking up a superbug can be a big risk and potentially life-threatening.

·      Only take an antibiotic when needed – Unless you really need one, don’t pressure your doctor to prescribe an antibiotic.  If all you have is a viral infection, antibiotics won’t treat them.  When antibiotics are misused, all they do is kill off non-resistant bacteria making you more likely to acquire bacteria resistant to antibiotics instead.

·      Take precautions before a surgical procedure – If you have a scheduled surgery in the future, there are several things you can do to lower your risk of getting a superbug.  First, if your surgery is on a body part you shave regularly allow the stubble to grow in for a few days before the procedure.  Razors can leave a trail of nicks and micro-cuts that offer entry points for bacteria into the body. 

If you smoke, quit or cut back several days before any surgical procedure as smoking reduces healing time potentially leaving a wound vulnerable which can be an invitation for superbugs to invade.

Make sure you are kept warm once inside the operating room which typically are kept chilly.  The body responds to cold air by constricting blood vessels supplying blood to the skin and tissues below it.  With less blood supplying oxygen to the incision site, immune cells become oxygen-deprived and become less effective at fighting off invading germs.  Ask for a warm blanket or covers right before the surgery. 

·      Ask for antibiotics before the surgery – Depending on the type of surgery, doctors routinely give patients preventive antibiotics to keep infections away.  

·      Pay attention to tubes in your body – The more tubes inserted in you, the greater the chance of a superbug to have a pathway to enter.  Any tube from the IV supplying fluids inserted in your arm to the catheter draining urine from your bladder is a potential entry point for these relentless bacteria.  Ask to have all tubes removed as soon as possible after surgery. 

·      Recognize the signs of infection – Possible signs could be a fever, dizziness, increasing pain, redness, warmth, swelling or pus around the incision as well as in your body.  Alert medical staff as soon as possible if you notice these symptoms.

 ·      Check out your hospital – Before being admitted, know how well your hospital is at controlling infections. 

·      Spend as little time in the hospital as possible – Each day that goes by when you’re hospitalized, increases your risk of developing an infection.  Work with the medical team to help you recover as quickly as possible and work on when you can be released.