Where Are You, Ignacz?
I came across an article that suggested there are definitely things to know to up your chances of surviving a hospital stay. The part about hand washing really caught my eye.
Apparently, when the first obstetrical hospital opened in Vienna, one in every eight pregnant women admitted died from puerperal fever. It took Professor Ignacz Semmelweiss to insist, toward the end of the nineteenth century, that doctors who had just come from performing autopsies must wash their hands before they handled a woman who was giving birth. Funny thing, the incidence of puerperal fever plummeted.
The author of the article says it "requires a brave patient to ask his doctor to wash his hands" but it is certainly one way to safeguard yourself, or a loved one the doctor is about to handle. It's true, most of us wouldn't think in terms of needing to safeguard ourselves from a health professional. We might indulge in the head-in-the-sand assumption that the unwashed hands of the autopsy to delivery-room days are long gone. The only problem is, it might be one of your last instances of blind trust before you join the statistics. A study released in 2004 stated that hospital errors have killed hundreds of thousands annually in the States.
I might want to dismiss all this, too, if I hadn't witnessed what I did in January of this year. We had to take our Mother to the emergency department of a large Toronto hospital, and then spend the requisite multiple-hour wait before it was finally her turn. During that time, I watched a nurse at the desk. Among other things that I saw her do, at one point she took some gauze pads from one patient to throw out. She was wearing gloves to protect herself, which was good because the pads were coming away from his nose all bloody. The only problem was that she went next to another patient, and without changing the gloves, she handled that patient's face.
I positively hovered about my mother when she was called in. Good thing I did, because Ignacz isn't there to help anymore. I mean, my mother might not have needed the help, but who wants to take such a chance?
Apparently, when the first obstetrical hospital opened in Vienna, one in every eight pregnant women admitted died from puerperal fever. It took Professor Ignacz Semmelweiss to insist, toward the end of the nineteenth century, that doctors who had just come from performing autopsies must wash their hands before they handled a woman who was giving birth. Funny thing, the incidence of puerperal fever plummeted.
The author of the article says it "requires a brave patient to ask his doctor to wash his hands" but it is certainly one way to safeguard yourself, or a loved one the doctor is about to handle. It's true, most of us wouldn't think in terms of needing to safeguard ourselves from a health professional. We might indulge in the head-in-the-sand assumption that the unwashed hands of the autopsy to delivery-room days are long gone. The only problem is, it might be one of your last instances of blind trust before you join the statistics. A study released in 2004 stated that hospital errors have killed hundreds of thousands annually in the States.
I might want to dismiss all this, too, if I hadn't witnessed what I did in January of this year. We had to take our Mother to the emergency department of a large Toronto hospital, and then spend the requisite multiple-hour wait before it was finally her turn. During that time, I watched a nurse at the desk. Among other things that I saw her do, at one point she took some gauze pads from one patient to throw out. She was wearing gloves to protect herself, which was good because the pads were coming away from his nose all bloody. The only problem was that she went next to another patient, and without changing the gloves, she handled that patient's face.
I positively hovered about my mother when she was called in. Good thing I did, because Ignacz isn't there to help anymore. I mean, my mother might not have needed the help, but who wants to take such a chance?
1 Comments:
Whoever said that those in the medical profession were actually smart?
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