This is a worrying piece of news....

Deadly Bug Being
Carried by Pets

THE hospital superbug MRSA is now being carried by pets in Britain, it has been revealed.

The deadly bacteria was discovered in a dozen animals from across the country, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has confirmed.

The development could make it harder to limit the spread of MRSA, which kills around 5,000 patients a year.

However, vets urged owners not to ditch their pets following the discovery.

It is carried harmlessly by one in three people but can prove fatal in babies, the elderly, those recovering from surgery or with a weakened immune system.

Cats, dogs and rabbits were found to be infected over the past year by HPA experts, The Observer newspaper says.

Spokeswoman Angela Kearns told the paper: "We have observed MRSA in some domestic animals. We confirmed this in our laboratories.

"The cases came from across Britain so we know it's not one particular cluster.

"We need to know if there is a lot of it out there, what are the risks?

"We don't know yet whether animals have acquired infection from humans or vice versa. There really is a big question over the whole area."
   

Always understood this bug was carried by everyone anyway so this is a typical non story really.

i wouldnt be surprised if some families ditched their pets over this :(

I agree with you, I love dogs, some people are too stupid to realise that the risk is no greater today than it was yesterday.

My Dad who is elderly, is recovering from two lots of surgery and several stays in hospital this year. He had to fight off MRSA before he could have his latest op. Luckily I'm intelligent enough not to think it came from any of our pets and farm animals (he's been too poorly to visit for months).   I imagine more people contract it in our "safe, disinfected" hospitals when they are already poorly. It's not where the infection lives that's the problem, it's whether the body can fend it off.

Kath.

well of course this is where they will contract it, as it only becomes active when you are ill, so obviously why people get it in hospitals, if staff levels were higher and nurses and ancillary workers were paid more, prhaps the cleanlines would be better, but when you have the decision between cleaning a bed side locker or cleaning and feeding the patient, which would you choose ?

I couldn't agree more that staffing levels (of doctors and nurse, not administrators) in hospitals need to be increased, as should their salaries. It's a wicked shame how this has been run down. There were so few staff available when my late F-i-L was in hospital that when he vomited in the evening, my M-i-L had to clean it up when she visited in the morning.

And I read there are now more administrators in the NHS than there are nurses. Appalling.

Cleaning and feeding the patient obviously! and in an ideal world the staff wouldn't have to choose so I wasn't having a go at hospital staff if that's what you were thinking. :) The point I was making, relevant to this discussion,  is that infection can be picked up anywhere, that pets aren't this sudden shocking danger to people, in fact people are  healthier for having them around, bugs and all.

Kath.

This has been around a few years as I had a hospital apointment (we saw three doctors/physios in ten minutes as I said I was not going to hang around!) with my daughter in 1999 and then went straight home to take my pregnant bitch to the vet for a caesar and jokingly said to my vet that I hoped I had not bought any infections from the hospital with me.  He replied to the effect that animals have MRSA present anyway.

I always imagined that patients with this were kept well away from others but when I went in for an op. about three years ago the man in the next room had it and it just had a note on the window
"MRSA - Barrier Nursing"

Christine

Back in my teens, (in the 1950's)  I did a pre-nursing course, and one of the main things that was drummed into us was that it was essential that when we moved from one patient to another that we should wash our hands - not just run them under the taps - but long enough to sing "Happy Birthday to you" twice!!!

To acquire an infection in hospital then was something that would cause the utmost horror to the nursing staff - because it would mean that there was something lacking in the hygiene routine being carried out in the hospitals.

Now, it seems to be far too casual - my youngest son, Nik, needed intravenous antibiotics for an acture throat infection, and I had to ask the nurse to please wash her hands before she removed one line and put in another - she was blowing her nose as she came in   Her response - oh don't worry, the antibiotics that Nik is getting will kill any bugs I might give him!

Apparently Intensive Care is about the most dangerous place to be in a hospital but it was always the place I felt my daughter was safest.  The nurses wash their hands before they come near your child, they wear gloves and aprons that are put on as they approach and removed as they leave.

Whilst we were in one of the London ICU's the physio came around and was wearing a really heavy knitted cardigan that swung around, I asked her to remove it before she approached my daughter and she glared at me and was about to decline when the nurse said she should not even have worn it into the ward (no outdoor coats etc were permitted on the ward itself).  I got so protective I would not let this particular woman touch Leonie and I did the physio under her instruction.

Going from ICU onto a general ward is a very scary experience as the hygine levels drop alarmingly.

Christine

i dont think it has anything to do with nurse but phyios, ots, domestics and relatives, most nurses and doctors pride themselves on hygiene

I have to disagree with you on that point, the nurses and doctors are just as unlikely to wash their hands between patients and/or procedures as anyone else. A common sight is someone moving between patients wearing gloves, but not changing them in between patients(!) Did you know that one of the most common places to find bugs of all kinds on a hospital ward, is on the pens carried in the pockets of staff. The hospital staff MOST likely to follow good hygene guidelines are the lab staff. How many people can you think of wash their hands BEFORE they go to the loo!
Lynn

well i have too disagree, because where I work we just had our infection control audit and we scored 99 % and everybody including drs had excellent handwashing technique, may I ak how you presume to know this information ?

It was widely reported last week on the News, that MRSA is still a big problem for hospital patients, they showed us how even after washing her hands a nurse put them under the blue light and they were covered in bacteria still. 

This is the 2nd time it was reported that the government had made efforts to control this bug in hospitals, but we still lose approx 5,000 patients a yr to it, so the minister said they're going to give it another go to try and get things under control and improve the services.  It all started on the News with a GP talking about his wife's death from MRSA after minor routine surgery, this family didn't have a pet so one would presume she caught it in hospital, he complained that she wasn't even put in isolation.

in reply to claresanders
I presume to know this information because I have worked as a Biomedical Scientist in Haermatology with a working knowledge of Microbiology for more than 25 years. Over the course of this time, I have worked in a hospital environment and have to deal on a daily basis with samples of body fluids and other material from patients with all manner of problems, both infectious and non-infective. All samples must be handled with the same care as no one knows which sample might be the next TB or HIV etc.
You must be very lucky to feel that your hygene audit scored so highly. The national figures show a much worse level of hygene as many articles in the national press and medical journals show. The mention I made about infected pens was published in the medical journals a couple of years ago. In the last hospital I worked at, I was appalled at seeing Junior Doctors in the staff restaurant in their white coats and nursing staff travelling to and from work in their uniforms. I can't see why the lab staff are not allowed to leave the lab in a white coat, yet nursing staff, who might have just as much infective material on their clothing, can travel to and from the hospital on public transport freely spreading microrganisms wherever they go. Maybe the lab managment are much tighter on infection control (and so they should be) than other department managers.
L

if 1 in 3 people carry mrsa up there nose, and every 6 months us nures have our noses swobbed and in 4 years only one person has had mrsa up their nose on my ward, I think it is fair too say that out of 25 staff, this is damn good, so why cant I travel in my uniform, as mrsa doesnt live on clothes, it needs moist warm environments like, wounds, noses and throats

In Response to claresanders
I never specified MRSA in my post. I still think that nurses shouldnt travel in their uniforms, or maybe I'm old fashioned. The information I mentioned all came from medical jourmals, so are you suggesting that medical researchers and the Dept of Health have been lying to us all these years?
L

sorry if i presumed mrsa, its just that the post is infact about mrsa :-0

How does that work for those of us working in community settings.  I may visit 10 different homes, work at a GP surgery and then within the hospital.  I wear mufti.  I may put on a plastic apron if I'm in the hospital, but I couldn't possible keep changing all day.  From one article I read they used to say nurses caps carried infections.  We have to use pens to keep all the contemporaneous records required of us. 

wouldnt it be lovely if we didnt have to write anymore due to cross contamination, our job would be alot more patient orientated, chance would be a fine thing..............dont you agree dudley :)

You're right there Clare, I esimate about two thirds of my time is spent writing and one third on patient care.  Also there seems so much duplication.  If I am caring for someone in labour, I have to write a continual record, plus keep observation charts, and then after the baby is born it all has to be transferred onto computer.  I can get through at least two pens in a week, so they don't get much time to become contaminated

lol........................same here I used to buy nice pens but its not worth it, a bic is fine :)

In reply to kerioak.
he may well of had mrsa in a wound so it can only contracted when changing the dressing and if you dont use universal precautions, as you dont change the dresing, i doubt you had anything to worry about, due to the lack of side rooms, where would you like us to put this patient ? turn him away ?

I didn't say I did not want the patient around, just that, not having come across it in at close quarters in the hospital before (and I did spend a LOT of time there with my daughter)  I somehow imagined they would have quarantine areas for something like this.  On the childrens ward there was almost a separate wing with cubicles for patients with anything contageous and I was surpised it was not the same for adults

Christine

According to this (dated 2001) we are just as likely to give MRSA to our pets!!

http://www.body1.com/news/index.cfm/1/83/1

Kath.

It makes me really cross working on the maternity unit.  We are very strict on handwashing for all staff.  Specially between any contact with patients and particularly between handling different babies.  But visitors come walking in and despite the signs asking them to wash their hands, they often don't (unless we ask them).  They they pick up the babies and hand them round like pass the parcel!! 
Our cleaners work very hard, but I see people in corridors in muddy shoes and slopping coffee cups all over the place.  Just outside where people go for their fags is a mountain of dog-ends despite bins being close to the doors.  Please help us to keep our hospitals safe and clean, we can only do so much ourselves.

hi dudley1

Are you from dudley and do you mean wordsley hospital, as this is where i work on the annexes, small world ! :)

Hi,

When I was nursing one of the biggest problems was pens used by all medical profession
which can carry MRSA transferred when a doctor asks a nurse for a pen from say her pocket on uniform or from the nurses station where lots of staff may have handled the pen or when patients borrow each other pens for menu cards etc.
I think we need to put things into propective here apply common sense in basic hygiene
and I believe if we got most people achieving this we would have less to worry about.
Education from young age is better just my opinion.

Briony:-)

hi briony

What do you suggest we all write with, with proper handwahing there should be nothing on the pen, as it is hardly an ideal environment for germs to grow

Hi,

There is no easy answer,and yes they did find even after hand washing it could still be passed on a pen.
Where I worked at the time we were advised to carry our own pens try not to share which was easier said than done.
There was even Tv programme back showing just how pens could spread it .Some years back now can't evem remember the name of the programme.Yes I agree like most infections cross contammination is best avoided with good hand washing by ALL MEDICAL STAFF not just the nurses.

Briony :-)

sorry, I'm not from Dudley.  Pity; we might have been able to have a chat in the hospital corridor!!  :) :)
Lorna