The Catch-22 Of Sinks In Hospitals: Crucial For Infection Control But A Breeding Ground For Bacteria
Experts are stuck in a bit of a "you can't live with them, you can't live without them" scenario when it comes to sinks in hospitals. In other hospital safety news, The Washington Post offers a look at what patients should know about the deadly infection linked to medical devices used in heart surgery.
Stat:
How Hospital Sinks Became A Health Problem
In a devilish case of unintended consequences, sinks have been linked to a number of outbreaks of serious infections in hospitals from Baltimore to Shanghai and many places in between in recent years. In one notable case, a hospital in the Netherlands took sinks out of the patient rooms in its intensive care unit in a bid to slow the spread of bacteria. (It worked.) At a time when concern is mounting about antibiotic resistance, and when the specter of untreatable infections threatens the advances of modern medicine, finding ways to slow the development and spread of drug-resistant bacteria is a major preoccupation of infection control teams. As a result, evidence that hospital sinks could exacerbate the problem presents health care specialists with a quandary. (Branswell, 10/25)
The Washington Post:
What You Need To Know About Those New, Deadly Heart-Surgery Infections
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned open-heart surgery patients recently that they were at risk of a deadly infection linked to a medical device used during their operations. Now, worried consumers say they are having a hard time getting information from hospitals and doctors about what they should do. (Sun, 10/24)
