I began my quest: A MRSA infection

Kathy Day’s story:
My father had a minor fracture of his ankle, and was in the hospital for 12 days of rehab, and then was home for a day and a half. Then he collapsed, and was brought back to the hospital. On admission, they diagnosed him with pneumonia. After he was in the hospital for six days and after he developed a MRSA urinary tract infection after a catheter insertion, I asked for a sputum culture (I'm a retired E.R. nurse, so I know about these things). It took them a day and a half to get the results, which showed them it was a MRSA infection. We'd been visiting him with no precautions; now they told us to use full precautions – gowns, gloves, and masks.

Dad was in the hospital for a total of 20 more days. He suffered through sepsis, complete loss of energy, appetite, and independence. He got blood transfusions, and very strong IV antibiotics. His treatment caused him thrush, a body-wide allergic reaction and loss of hearing. He had been living independently with my mother at home before. Once his acute care (hospital) was "complete" he was sent to a nursing home. He had become a totally bed-bound nursing home patient because of this, and couldn’t sit up without passing out. After nine weeks in the nursing home, in an isolation room, he became very depressed. In total, he lost a third of his body weight. He never walked again. What happened to him wasn’t so rare, as a month before he’d been admitted, two joint replacement patients had had MRSA in the same small 25-bed hospital, and had died from it.

After this happened to my father, I began my quest for MRSA prevention. I wrote letters to the hospital, did research, and came upon Jeanine Thomas, who was the founder of MRSA Survivors Network in Chicago. She's a real powerhouse! She got a law passed in Illinois. Then I wrote a proposal for Maine, got the necessary support and a sponsor, Representative Adam Goode. We passed a law in June 2009 to screen all high risk patients for MRSA on hospital admissions.

Kathy Day's advice: If someone is at risk for MRSA, e.g., they're elderly, coming from a nursing home, with ongoing health problems, or are about to have implant surgery, request MRSA screening from the admitting physician for their own safety. For an elective admission, it's best to be screened a week or two ahead of time to allow decolonization (to clear the MRSA from the patient's body) through five days of preparation, including showering daily with Hibiclens, and the ointment Mupirocin for the nose, which is a prescription antibiotic. If you test positive for MRSA before entering the hospital, you should be either isolated or cohorted (roomed with someone with a like organism).

There's a higher risk of infection for surgery involving implants, e.g., knee or hip replacements, or cardiac valve replacements.

Read Jeanine Thomas' MRSA story.

Remind your daughters: Mariana Bridi da Costa's misdiagnosed fatal infection

The 20-year-old Brazilian beauty queen Mariana Bridi da Costa died early this morning in the hospital. She had had a urinary tract infection (UTI), which was initially misdiagnosed, delaying the routine antibiotic treatment that probably would have saved her life.

The bacterial infection progressed rapidly, snowballing into more serious conditions. First, it spread to her blood ("septicemia"). The septicemia then caused an insufficient blood flow that triggered the quick deadening of tissue ("necrosis"), first in Mariana's hands and feet. But even the prompt amputation of her hands and feet could not save her life, as the septicemia (also called bacteremia or sepsis) apparently led to organ failure and her death.

As of now, it's not known whether she had acquired the UTI at home or in the hospital. Her boyfriend said she had felt ill in late December, perhaps from a UTI, and that her doctor had misdiagnosed the problem as a kidney stone, and prescribed medicine for that. This incorrect diagnosis evoked a wrong-drug error. The type of bacterial infection she had - Pseudomonas aeruginosa - is usually acquired in the hospital, not at home. A hospital-acquired infection, whose detection was delayed, may well have led to her death.

Mariana had been a finalist to represent Brazil in the Miss World contest.

Advice to mothers: Remind your daughters that they can prevent some UTIs by wiping themselves from front to back after using the toilet. Doctors can prevent some hospital-acquired UTIs by washing their hands before touching patients.

Read another Pseudomonas aeruginos story.

Thanks to Shari Roan for the source article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times.

If he'd give me a few good years, I'd work on hospital-acquired infections

Bill Percival of Greenville, South Carolina picked up five staph infections while in a hospital for cancer treatment. As he clung to life, he made himself a promise.

"I told my doctor that if he would give me a few good years, I'd spend them working on hospital-acquired infections," said the 64-year-old retiree.

He kept his word. Since his recovery, he has spent the past few months attending meetings of a group overseeing the reporting of such infections.

On Friday, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control released its first report showing rates at hospitals around the state for two types of infections — those associated with the placing of a catheter deep into major blood vessels, and those associated with surgical sites. In this first report, the latter category includes only heart-bypass surgeries and hysterectomies.

DHEC will collect more data and will issue another report later this year. Other procedures will be added to the reports over time so the public can have an idea of how a hospital is doing overall.

"In the long run, we hope that we get the reports to the point that they are a useful guide to healthcare consumers so that you can look and see where you're more likely to be safe if you have to go in a hospital," said S.C. consumer advocate John Ruoff, who lobbied for the infection-reporting legislation.

"People need to be knowledgeable about this, and if these reports can increase public awareness of the danger of health care-associated infections, antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals and in the community, that is a big help," said Helen Haskell, who helped form Mothers Against Medical Error after her son died in a hospital.

Sen. Ralph Anderson, D-Greenville, lead sponsor of the infection-reporting bill, said the requirement will get hospitals to work harder to lower infections.

Dr. Shawn Stinson, who is in charge of clinical quality and patient safety at Palmetto Health, said, "I have kids, and if they get sick and end up in somebody else's hospital, I want zero."

Advice: Join the efforts of citizens in many other states to file and pass state legislation to require the reporting of hospital-acquired infections.


Browse for related stories in the index at the very bottom of this page, or see a short video of one person’s hospital infection story.

Thanks to Czerne Reid for the source story in today's South Carolina state.com.