Dear Rach
I do sympathise -
this is all my totally unqualified opinion so do check - but I did e mail a doctor to check the basic facts of MRSA.
It is worrying but as to any risk to anyone else, including your child - I very much doubt it!
However there is a very slight statistical risk - very remote - but in this day of litigation I suppose the staff might not have wanted to commit themselves as far as saying there was no risk at all to you both !
The hospital knows you have a little boy and people just so rarely catch it as an active infection outside hospital -
I would ask your doctor tomorrow but this site below gives a fairly clear explanation of the risks - including risks at home and to healthy people:
www.link.med.ed.ac.uk/RIDU/Mrsa.htmMRSA does live on the skin of lots of people from time to time anyway, where it does no harm and is only a risk if it gets a hold in the tissues or if very weak patients get it in their lungs etc.
I am guessing that your dad had no symptoms from MRSA (is this so) or you would probably have known about it - normally patients with active MRSA infections these days are nursed in isolation in a separate room ( I e-mailed a doctor to ask them before replying to this)
- But that he had it on his skin or it was detected somewhere from a routine swab they were probably treating him either with external medications or antibiotics to protect other patients, with open wounds, or very ill and weak etc
I do sympathise with the hospital cleanliness issue, as while the treatment and the care I had when I had my accident and the operations was really good
You could complain or your dad or mum could ! If you dont say , they can say they did not know!
- I had the same cleanliness problem - when as a patent I pointed out that I had been looking at the same stains on the floor next to my bed for 3 days over a weekend that my own wounds had made and dirty dressings had not been cleared from my table - no one did anything and I was bed bound and could not do it myself - I found it very upsetting and frustrating.
We all have our theories but personally I thought when I was in - that it is not helped by nursing being separated from cleaning and nurses do not clean hardly at all.
Years ago it was part of the same thing and while there were separate cleaning staff - if something was dirty or needed clearing away the nurses would clean it - they do clear things and wipe things down sometimes now but not always - especially if the ward is busy
I know they are not cleaners and would not expect them to be and it is easy to criticise
- but for me as a patient it seemed to keep things clean in between when the cleaners come in - must be part of patient care.
This is only my unqualified opinion as a patient - but does mean I do worry a lot about the risk of MRSA when I go in again in a few months to have an ankle fusion.
But I truly do not think you or your little boy are at risk at all.
Actually when Caja was born she caught a slightly different but also antibiotic resistant bug on her skin from the special care baby unit it was MRSE (Staphylococcus epidernidis rather than aureus)
MRSA is apparently not the only resistant staph bug in hospitals.
I caught it from Caja but neither of us had any symptoms , but I was very worried even in those days when it was not heard of much.
But in fact even though I was not really well enough they sent us home as they said the best thing would be to go home as at home this bug would disappear
and in hospital we were a problem to other patients as they had to keep us in an isolation room away from mothers who might be nursing sick babies.
I do not know if it is the same if you have MRSA ( rather than MRSE) with no symptoms, but unless you become a carrier I would have thought so .
But ask your GP
all the best
veritee
