Medical privacy (off topic)

[Nick.Barnes@pobox.com]

At 2001-09-03 17:54:15+0000, Owen Blacker writes:

> Owen Lewis quoth:
> >
> >  One of my goddaughters has just podded (prematurely) and the hospital
> > (Chelsea and Westminster) managed to give young George one of their
> > home-brewed ward infections. As he was in intensive care at 
> > the time it says something extra about the ubiquity of their bugs.
> 
> In the appropriate lecture of the Medical Microbiology unit of my degree
> the lecturer (who was a consultant at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital)
> mentioned that methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA or
> "superbug" as tabloids prefer it) is endemic in every hospital in the
> country, or words to that effect.

Not just this country.  MRSA is very widespread in hospitals around
the world.  That's why Vancomycin is the first resort, not the last,
for seriously immunocompromised patients with suspected bacterial
infection that may be iatrogenic (in other words, with any fever over
38 degrees that's sustained for more than three hours).  They pump it
in before they even look at the samples, because if it's MRSA then it
can get right out of hand before there's time for anything to grow in
the lab.  And this way, of course, we'll move from MRSA to VISA and
we'll be back in the 1920s before you can say "sulfa".

Let's stop talking about this, OK?  It's not nice, it's not
UK-specific, and it's not crypto.

Nick B