9 dead after IV infections at 6 Ala hospitals

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: AP

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Nine Alabama hospital patients who were treated with intravenous feeding bags contaminated with bacteria have died and the maker has pulled the product off the market, state health officials said Tuesday.

Ten others who got the nutrient treatments that are delivered directly from the plastic bags into the bloodstream through IV tubes also were sickened by the outbreak of serratia marcescens bacteria, health officials said. All the patients were critically ill before receiving the IVs and officials have not definitively tied the deaths to the outbreak at six hospitals, State Health Officer Donald Williamson said.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ALA_HOSPITALS_INFECTION_OUTBREAK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

---

edit: better link

[phantom power]

1. yikes

[virgogal]

2. Scary stuff. Very scary.

[bluesmail]

3. This should not be happening. What happened to the standards that the laws

mandated? Huh? Huh? I fear it's only going to get worse for us 'common people.' Blows my mind.

[WatsonT]

7. Standards and regulations are never a guarantee

100% perfection isn't realistic.

[fasttense]

13. But it seems today they provide no realistic protection against any

contamination in our food, water, air or medical supplies. We allow corporate CEOs to get off scott free no matter how many people are sickened or die because they decided to pinch a penney. This is what you get when there is little to no accountability.

[WatsonT]

15. That's hyperbole plain and simple

our food, medicine, water supplies are overwhelmingly safe.

The reason these stories make such waves is that they are so unusual.

Think of all the people who used IVs in this period of time. How many didn't get sick? You'll never hear about them.

[anneboleyn]

4. Horrible! I am so disturbed by this -- I would like to devote myself to patient advocacy.

Thank you for posting this story.

There is so much horrible stuff out there like this, yet the republicans will tell you that our healthcare system is perfect. So many hospitals are underfunded, understaffed (so that even the best doctors and nurses find themselves in dreadful lose-lose situations), and insurance companies pressure doctors to make decisions that are *not* in the best interest of the patients. We have even seen some terrible mistakes, firsthand: hospital personnel repeatedly refused to give insulin to a 70 year old diabetic, despite attempts by the relatives to explain, again and again, that this person was a diabetic and needed insulin twice a day. This info was even available in her computerized medical records. She went without insulin for four days, until her regular doctor happened to look over her numbers and noticed her extremely high blood sugar.

[shanti]

5. on a related note...

http://www.thirdage.com/news/superbug-crkp-increasing-california-350-superbug-infections_3-29-2011

this is scary....

[truthisfreedom]

6. Hmm. Seems like IV bags should be treated with UV light before use.

But, like most of my harebrained ideas, it would probably break down whatever's good in the IV as well.

[Lucinda]

8. I have a friend that's been talking about using UV in hospital room cleaning for a while now

:)

[pansypoo53219]

9. my alcoholic swabs were recalled after

a child died.

[Hannah Bell]

10. It says the bags were all mixed at a single pharmacy.

I would have first suspected user error but for the fact of multiple hospitals.


A single pharmacy, Birmingham-based Meds IV, made the bags. Williamson said the company has notified its customers of the contamination, has discontinued production and was being very cooperative.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ALA_HOSPITALS_INFECTION_OUTBREAK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[dmr]

11. That's a big problem right there. Outsourcing, instead of admixing

in the hospital pharmacy where you have greater control.

I've made thousands of these solutions in my career. TPNs (Total Parenteral Nutrition) are complex IV admixtures. You must work under aseptic conditions & techniques, under a Laminar Flow Hood, and inside a clean room.

One slight, or corner cut & you can cause grave harm. You can be sure officials from various agencies / accreditations are investigating, & many others are sweating bullets.

[sendero]

12. I had no idea...

... that IV products were manufactured by local pharmacies. That's crazy in and of itself.

The manufacture of such products properly cannot be done in a basement with a box of hand tools.

[eilen]

14. Most pharm labs have the correct equipment

to mix IV's, chemotherapies, TPN's. They get inspected. There are standards. There are protocols. This isn't like messing around in a kitchen and calling it dinner. There was either breakdown in protocol or a bad batch of solution from the manufacturer.