How carriers of Staphylococcus aureus do worse in the hospital

There’s a confounder there: MRSA-carrying patients *only* are being “measured.” Where’s the control group of non-MRSA-carrying patients, who couldn’t possibly be “infecting themselves.”

When looking at fruit rot in cellar storage, it’s kind of pointless to disinfect the apples and point proudly to uncovering the reason/solution for the rot, while ignoring the pears and oranges that are also rotting.

And then there’s the research around hospital staff and hand washing. Not all “dirty” is visible: hospitals for all their spit-polish-and-shine, use of noxious and sometimes harmful cleaning agents are dirty places. Apparently “Dr. Oz” says most people’s toilets are cleaner than their kitchen counters. Given the lower incidence of home-bedroom/bathroom-acquired MRSA, I’d suggest that most people’s beds (and possibly bathrooms too) might be a lot cleaner than most hospitals.

I live in Ontario, Canada, where theoretically at least all medically necessary health care is a public right. Here it is now a patient’s well-publicized *right* to *see* the healthcare worker (whether in hospital or clinic) wash their hands before approaching. And that alone cut the rates of hospital-acquired infections.

Apparently, though, doctors and nurses aren’t particularly compliant when it comes to observing the appropriate procedures to keep the levels of the infectious agents they themselves carry to a minimum.

And the research around hospital staff wearing work clothes “outside,” before work, during breaks and home from work, is a demonstrated risk. But there are no requirements here around that (though there used to be).

Clearly we can’t censure doctors, orderlies and nurses in a way that further hurts the public that needs them. But there’s no reason at all why it can’t be made an infraction to neglect scrupulousl attention to their own cleanliness, and to make mandatory “contributions” for incidents of failure to an education fund around how infections are spread — and how that spread can be prevented.

This is largely a simple sanitation issue, folks.

I wonder, respecting MRSA, how many doctors are aware of the recent research showing sequential spraying with household white vinegar and 3% hydrogen peroxide provides better kill of MRSA than the “fancy” hospital antiseptics?