Then, when you turned up at the hospital again, the staff did not seem worried about your condition and denied that your procedure had anything to do with it. After being bounced around to a chiropractor, a couple different hospitals and a few doctors, it was finally discovered that you had an infection caused by your surgical procedure. This is exactly what happened to a woman in California. Sadly, she had to spend two weeks in the hospital while she was treated for Strep group B infection from an abscess at the surgical site.
If you think hospital infections, or nosocomial infections, are uncommon in the United States, you have been misinformed. In fact, several news outlets reported recently on the frequency of hospital infections in the U.S. Consequently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, estimate that one in 25 hospital patients develops hospital infections. Startlingly, that means more than 600,000 people are afflicted each year with hospital infections. Of that 600,000 people, 75,000 people fight more than one hospital infection at a time.
To lower the risk of hospital infection, it is extremely important that patients know what they are, how they are acquired and who is at risk. Without this information, you could be increasing your risk for hospital infections every time you are admitted to the hospital. The information below can help you get the knowledge you need to protect yourself from hospital infections.
What is a hospital infection?
You went to the hospital to get better -- it can’t make you worse, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case, mostly due to hospital infections. Although many people are unaware of the dangers associated with hospital infections, countless people are affected by them. A hospital infection is often caused by pathogens found on invasive medical devices such as ventilators and catheters. On the whole, hospital infections include central line-associated bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical-site infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia.