Armageddon has arrived

[AnthonyM83]

Even if you wear your mask and gloves, especially at con-homes, it's hard not to make full skin to skin contact with them, be it your neck or arms (we are only allowed short sleeves unless it's your jacket which your partner also needs to be wearing). It's a little hard for two people to get a patient onto the cot sometimes when they're wrapped in so many sheets, some unknowingly wet, their tubing everywhere. I'd rather know if there's a disease.

[JPINFV]

^

Huh? Your company requires both EMTs to wear jackets or no one wears a jacket? Screw that, I get cold too easily to let my comfort be at the whim of my partner with regards to a piece of the uniform.

[AnthonyM83]

Technically, yes. Response times and looking good for FD above most else seem to be our priorities.

I hate wearing our jacket or night sweatshirt. Feels too constrictive, even when cold (it gets hot again when we get in the back with the patient, anyway). My partners usually just wear theirs anyway.

[Chief1C]

Unless you start wearing full Tyvek suits on every call, I would also find it hard to avoid at least minimal contact.

[captainstandup]

How many providers would prefer to have thumb screws applied or eat sheep eyes than to sit through the annual infection control update? We prepare, plan, legislate and punish those not in compliance. Most of us laugh at the prospect of the dreaded "pandemic" and continue happily along our apathetic path of self destruction.

Its really a shame that health care is largely responsible for this mess. As an earlier post mentioned, overuse of antibiotics and filthy conditions within the institutions have made naturally occurring pathogens deadly. Add to this completion of mapping of the genome and a few million towel clad zealots with money and you have a recipe for destruction. No we can't wear level 1 PPE on every UTI call to or from a nursing home, but we can take progressive steps to literally clean up our act.

Hospitals are constantly at or beyond capacity, often denying admission for days due to lack of bed space or staffing shortages. Try adding a surge of 100,000 additional patients nationwide over a three day period. How about 500,000 or a million? Pandemic anything, be it MRSA, the flu (avian or 1918), small pox etc, would tax the healthcare industry to the breaking point. We can barely meet the current need as is.

EMS role in patient to patient transmission of disease is arguably minimal. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge there is no data regarding healthcare worker contraction of disease while attending to those infected.

Hospitals do all they can to manipulate data to minimize three things 1) The impact of recordable illnesses / injuries on workers compensation insurance rates 2) Negative effects of high infection rates on JCAHO accreditation 3) Negative impact on revenue stream.

So who takes the lead? I really don’t know the answers, but I think most of us agree these are real issues and if, perhaps when things go badly, each patient that isn't in the hospital will be another bed available for someone seriously ill.

I personally don't believe the hospitals can or want to operate with even one bed in reserve capacity as an empty room generates no money, needs no nurses, no labs, no support services, etc until filled.

Perhaps 4cmk6 is right, we can’t wear tyvek suits and minimal contact is simply going to happen. All I'm saying is that our success in not being a part of disease transmission may be as simple as being more attentive to hand washing and keeping the rig clean. No, it likely will not be measurable and if so meaningful data is years away, but we must begin somewhere.

[AnthonyM83]

True, and while it's just a big scare for some people, in some areas MRSA is a very real and present danger, whether it'll kill you or not. Hand washing and equipment decon might actually save you...it's not one of those "chances are so remote it won't happen to me" deals.

[Dustdevil]

dont forget about killer birds gotta remember those !

little buggers will peck ya to death

Dude, that movie STILL gives me nightmares! :shock:

[BlueMoon]

I think the thing to remember is the fact that we ALL have MRSA on our skin. You can disinfect your ambulance and as soon as you step back into it, MRSA is there again. What about VRE or C-diff?? All 3 of these are prominent in nursing homes.

People all over the country are going off half-cocked without having all the necessary facts. The news makes it sound like MRSA is the newest flesh-eating super-bug and it isnt, its been around for eons and again, we all have it. Proper hand-washing after patient contact is essential, but then we all know that.

I realize that people have died....but come on, sending a child home because he/she has a pimple is hysteria and people need to research and educate themselves before flying off the handle.

[EMT-B 55]

We responded to a patient with respiratory MSRA. While in the Pt's home my partner cut herself.

Would this be considered an exposure similar to a needle stick?

If so what should my partner do?

[steph1030]

Dude, that movie STILL gives me nightmares! :shock:

hehe bringin back memories

sorry hadda do it couldnt help myself