If you go to a hospital the last thing you want or expect is to get a new health problem, but it happens more frequently than you might imagine. Hospital-acquired infections are one part of the problem. For many years, they have been the focus of government efforts to improve care, including penalizing hospitals with high rates. Progress has been made, but not enough. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine examines the trend. In 2011, one in 25 hospital patients had an infection acquired in the hospital. By 2015, this had declined to one in 31 and by 2023 it was one in 38. But this means there were likely over 500,000 hospital-acquired infections in 2023. Some of these are associated with urinary catheters and other devices, but many are just a result of poor cleanliness practices. We saw during the CV-19 epidemic that many patients got infected in the hospital.
What is really disgraceful about the issue is that hospitals are charging payers and patients a fortune and are paying administrators and executives grossly excessive compensation, while stinting on clinical resources. Failure to apply resources to solving the infection problem instead of paying executives is a further blot on the hospital system reputation. (NEJM Article)
My disdain for the medical community continues to grow. Weren’t medical complications one of the leading causes of death for a while? Maybe they still are? In just my little circle, I had a father-in-law who suffered with stomach ailments for the rest of his life after an ulcer operation, an Aunt who was given 10x the amount of chemo and my mom, who instead of being released to live out her days at home, was directed to a hospital bed where they morphined her to death. As patients, out of the loop, we trust theses people with our lives. Their obedient following of bad covfee-fee protocols forever changed my perspective.