MRSA
Hi Guys - I noticed your post about MRSA Angela - and thought I'd add my experience. Firstly - as an ER nurse - we often joke (yes we nurses have a sick sense of humour), that most of us are MRSA positive after all the years of dealing with patients. However - it's not until we are patients ourselves that we are tested.
When I had the Petersens Hernia repair at Georges Dumont last August - I remember them swabbing me for MRSA the first night post-op. The third day in - they moved me to a private room because I tested positive. I was so sick I didn't think much of it at the time. After I got out of hospital - I spent a week at my parents getting lots of TLC - my husband was away working. I got to thinking - holy crap - how can I go back to work being MRSA positive. Maybe I always had been - but now I KNEW I was - and how could I in good concious take care of ill, elderly and otherwise compromised patients and possibly pass it on to them. All sorts of scenarios ran through my mind. Was I psitive before I even had my RNY? Did I pick it up when I had my RNY? Since then at my work? Anyway - I had myself pretty worked up over it - after all - I need to work. When I got home I went to see a wonderful doctor I know - who I knew I could trust to keep this bit of info confidential until I was treated - and until we found out what they do with health care workers who are positive. Turns out - there was no policy to deal with MRSA positive health care workers. Thankfully - a course of antibiotics took care of the MRSA. And I tested negative later on.
Anyway - just for informations sake - many of us are positive for MRSA - and do not ever know it. UNLESS we become a patient and are tested. In healthy people who are not immuno-compromised - USUALLY it's a label more than anything. But - it's not something you want to pass on to people who are very young, old, ill, immuno-supressed, chronically ill etc. In those people it can spell trouble.
That's my two cents worth for today- I'm off to work tonight for the first of 3 twelve hr nights in "The Pit". That's what we nurses are calling our ER these days. It's NO fun.
Have a great weekend everyone!
When I had the Petersens Hernia repair at Georges Dumont last August - I remember them swabbing me for MRSA the first night post-op. The third day in - they moved me to a private room because I tested positive. I was so sick I didn't think much of it at the time. After I got out of hospital - I spent a week at my parents getting lots of TLC - my husband was away working. I got to thinking - holy crap - how can I go back to work being MRSA positive. Maybe I always had been - but now I KNEW I was - and how could I in good concious take care of ill, elderly and otherwise compromised patients and possibly pass it on to them. All sorts of scenarios ran through my mind. Was I psitive before I even had my RNY? Did I pick it up when I had my RNY? Since then at my work? Anyway - I had myself pretty worked up over it - after all - I need to work. When I got home I went to see a wonderful doctor I know - who I knew I could trust to keep this bit of info confidential until I was treated - and until we found out what they do with health care workers who are positive. Turns out - there was no policy to deal with MRSA positive health care workers. Thankfully - a course of antibiotics took care of the MRSA. And I tested negative later on.
Anyway - just for informations sake - many of us are positive for MRSA - and do not ever know it. UNLESS we become a patient and are tested. In healthy people who are not immuno-compromised - USUALLY it's a label more than anything. But - it's not something you want to pass on to people who are very young, old, ill, immuno-supressed, chronically ill etc. In those people it can spell trouble.
That's my two cents worth for today- I'm off to work tonight for the first of 3 twelve hr nights in "The Pit". That's what we nurses are calling our ER these days. It's NO fun.
Have a great weekend everyone!
This may have already been mentioned but I know here in Saint John you must have 3 negative tests at least a week between each test in order for your file to be cleared at the hospital. If not, it will remain on your hospital record and every time you visit the hospital and they pull out your file, you will be "marked", confined to a room with a bright yellow sticker on the door.....
Just like the poster above said, hospital staff is not tested and are passing it around. I had it and hated being treated like the plague when I went for hospital visits.....I know it is for the safety of others but the staff did not treat me very well with the exception of my doctor....
Betty
Just like the poster above said, hospital staff is not tested and are passing it around. I had it and hated being treated like the plague when I went for hospital visits.....I know it is for the safety of others but the staff did not treat me very well with the exception of my doctor....
Betty
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