Hospitals Hazardous To Health?

Many of us find hospitals off putting; they give us the creeps. And it is not just that a lot of us don’t like the antiseptic sights and smells of a hospital, many of us have their worst experiences and memories inextricably linked with hospitals.

And now according to this study, there are other reasons why hospitals may actually be hazardous to our health:

There is a very real risk of developing certain infections during hospital stays, such as sepsis or pneumonia. According to one study, 48,000 people died in 2006 after developing these complications. This increases the cost of hospital stay very substantially as well.

According to the report, these figures, scary as they may are, may be underestimated because they do not take into account certain other infections such as surgical site infection that may come to light only later, after discharge from the hospital.

Lack of infection control in hospitals is a very serious issue. It can cause an otherwise healthy person who has checked in for routine surgery, to develop infection because of hospital lapses. In a worst case scenario, such a healthy person can have the kind of complications that can actually cause their death!

Source: latimes