Posted On: March 7, 2007, 12:36 am CST

Posted By: Julia

MRSA is epidemic in hospitals. The reason you don't know about it before you go in to a facility is because there is no national accountability, required reporting, no watchdog unaffiliated or unbiased agency monitoring errors, infections or negligence in hospitals. We think there should be or that there already is a system in place, but the truth is the healthcare industry is very careful to avoid having to account for or report errors. When an extreme example presents, as in Walter Reed's outpatient facility, people were complaining for years about the problems there but no one was listening until the Washington Post 'broke' the story. Now there is a huge outcry for reform. Still people believe this is an isolated case of neglect. Not so! My husband contracted two infections in a hospital, MRSA and Pseudomonas. Both were preventable. The hospital and the physicians concealed the infections from us. In fact the victim or patient is so often blamed for "being too sick" in these cases, or too old or immune compromised. The fact is that MRSA is an in-hospital acquired infection spread from bed to bed by unclean, unsanitized methods. The head of an ICU unit told me that such infections and their spread were "the nature of the beast." Her implication was that there was little that could be done about it. She condemned my husband to die after he had walked into the hospital for treatment two months prior after a prior discharge with active infections. He died two months later as she predicted from the after-effects and complications of MRSA, Pseudomonas and an absolute uncompromising negligence. I sympathize with you all over the MRSA effects on your lives but your stories are far from rare. It happens all the time to those who simply elect surgery, not just to the super ill. These epidemics of hospital acquired infections are hospitals' 'dirty' secrets. Physicians realize the problems but fail to report or demand reform either. To everyone in the industry, "It's not my problem" seems to be their take on the matter. Until the public demands more, we will continue to suffer this gross form of negligence. What you can do? Tell your story to everyone and anyone who will listen: Newspapers, advocates, health departments, state legislators, governors, Senators and Congressmen and women. Only when there is an outcry like that at Walter Reed will the industry begin to clean up their act. Demand reform! The industry wants tort reform to prevent you from financial remedy for negligence. Don't let them get by with it! I tell my story to every forum that I can find because it is all I can do in my husband's memory is to help prevent someone else from dying as he did.