Hospital Wanderer

VANCOUVER - Fifteen major hospitals across B.C. are getting a total of $22 million to fast-track patients through their emergency rooms as part of the government's strategy to tie funding to hospital performance.

Health Services Minister Kevin Falcon said Wednesday the money follows a pilot project that helped reduce congestion in emergency rooms at several hospitals in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

"With almost two million visits to B.C. emergency rooms last year alone, this investment will help ensure patients receive timely, high-quality patient care," Falcon said in a news release.

The hospitals sharing the cash include seven in the Vancouver area and others in Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Kamloops, Vernon and Prince George.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned consumers to stop using infant sleep positioners. Over the past 13 years, CPSC and the FDA have received 12 reports of infants between the ages of 1 month and 4 months who died when they suffocated in sleep positioners or became trapped and suffocated between a sleep positioner and the side of a crib or bassinet.


Most of the infants suffocated after rolling from a side to stomach position. In addition to the reported deaths, CPSC has received dozens of reports of infants who were placed on their backs or sides in sleep positioners, only to be found later in potentially hazardous positions within or next to the sleep positioners.


“To date, there is no scientifically sound evidence that infant sleep positioners prevent SIDS,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner and a pediatrician. “We want to make sure parents, health care professionals, and childcare providers understand the potential risk of suffocation and stop using infant sleep positioners.”


There are two main types of infant sleep positioners. The flat mats with side bolsters or inclined (wedge) mats with side bolsters. Both typically claim to help keep infants on their backs and reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The FDA has never cleared an infant sleep positioner to prevent or reduce the risk of SIDS. In addition, CPSC and the FDA are unaware of any scientific studies demonstrating that infant positioners prevent SIDS or are proven to prevent suffocation or other life-threatening harm. And even the American Academy of Pediatrics does not support the use of any sleep positioner to prevent SIDS.





However these sleep positioners claim to have the following advantages:

• Aid in food digestion to ease colic or the symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
• Prevent flat head syndrome (plagiocephaly)

These benefits on the other hand didn't outweighs the risk of sleep positioners that's why CPSC and the FDA are warning parents and people in hospital scrubs or cartoon scrubs (the caregivers) to:

• STOP using sleep positioners. Using a positioner to hold an infant on his or her back or side for sleep is dangerous and unnecessary.
• NEVER put pillows, infant sleep positioners, comforters, or quilts under a baby or in a crib.
• ALWAYS place an infant on his or her back at night and during nap time. To reduce the risk of SIDS, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends placing infants to sleep on their backs and not their sides.

Read more: Deaths prompt CPSC, FDA warning on infant sleep positioners

"Once considered safe havens, health care institutions today are confronting steadily increasing rates of crime, including violent crime."

Joint Commission

People in scrubs uniforms are alert nowadays because of the widespread news regarding NDM-1 or commonly known as the new "superbug".



NDM-1 bacteria is a newly-identified superbug that is spreading globally. The NDM-1 stands for “New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase” or New Delhi-Metallo-1 (NDM-1) named after the capital city of India, where it was first identified.NDM-1 gene has been found inside the E. Coli bacteria and Klebsiella pneumonia. This superbug is antibiotic-resistant and has the potential to become more devastating than the H1N1 Pandemic because it makes bacteria extremely resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most potent class called carbapenems, the kind of drug that is reserved for emergency use and treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bugs like MRSA and C-Difficile. However there are still two drugs that can stand up to carbapenem-resistant infections. These are colistin, an older antibiotic that has some toxic side effects, and Pfizer's Tygacil.




What caused NDM-1?


This superbug is said to be caused by the medical tourism especially those who have undergone cosmetic surgeries and international travel especially those who received recent medical care in India. And since this bacteria was spread by travel it has the possibility to spread very quickly not just in India, Pakistan and UK but even around the world.



What are its effects/symptoms?


The NDM-1 enzyme can lead to pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and blood infections. Health officials have revealed that the NDM-1 Bacteria can spread in person-to-person contact. E. Coli symptoms are diarrhea,abdominal cramps,nausea, and fatigue while Klebsiella pneumonia's symptoms are fever, chills, cough, dizziness, wheezing and urinary tract infection (UTI)



Who have high risk of being infected?


Those people who have recently been to India or Pakistan, those who have been in contact with someone who has recently traveled to India or Pakistan and those who have weakened immune systems.



What must be done?


The most effective way to get rid of this superbug is to make new kind of antibiotics that could cure NHM-1 infected patients however most drug companies have little interest in developing new antibiotics because they are not as profitable as other drugs, they are only taken for a few days, unlike drugs for high blood pressure, pain or cholesterol which are taken for long periods.So as for now we will settle for the answer that this superbug is not that curable by ordinary antibiotics. What we could only do is to prevent infection by avoiding those people who have high risk of being infected. Let's just settle for this however by any case that this bacteria will be widespread this could be another problem for the society, government, hospitals and the world itself.

This may not be a news anymore because this happened last September 2009 but this is worth noting for. There is a program called Balance Menus which is a voluntary program that seeks to improve nutrition and benefit the environment by reducing meat purchasing among participating hospitals by 20 percent within 12 months. The program also promotes shifting towards serving more sustainably produced meat.

Developed and piloted by San Francisco Physicians for Social Responsibility, Balanced Menus
was first implemented in 2008 in four San Francisco Bay Area hospitals. In September 2009,
Health Care Without Harm launched the program nationally.

This program was implemented in four San Francisco Bay Area hospitals: Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, the San Francisco VA Medical Center, the John Muir Health Medical Center, and one anonymous hospital. The hospitals vary in size as well as medical and food services provided, representing a broad range of possibilities for the program.

So what is the result of this program. Did the healthcare personnel,patients,doctors and nurses in medical uniforms grew thinner and unhealthier at the span of this program. Definitely not.

The Balanced Menus program implementation in these four hospitals exceeded the 20 percent meat reduction goal, and yielded substantial savings in costs and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as, potentially,some improvements in health for those eating reduced quantities of meat. The program’s expansion provides an important opportunity to further advance these goals. With a larger sample of hospitals and a longer time-span, future program evaluation work can gain an even clearer perspective on the program’s impacts.

This is actually a great news! If only all hospitals would do this, then even patients will be healthier and doctors too!

Man looks at the outside appearance but God looks at the heart....

Nearly 25% of children in California have never been to the dentist and that disparities exist across race, ethnicity, and type of insurance when it comes to the length of time between dental care visits.


Researchers found that Latino and African American children across all types of insurance were less likely than Asian American and white children to have visited the dentist in the prior six months. Similarly, Latino and African American children in public insurance programs, including Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), went to the dentist less often than white and Asian American children with the same insurance coverage.


The researchers note the findings raise concerns about Medicaid's ability to address disparities in dental care access. Ultimately, they observe, more strategic efforts are necessary to overcome systemic barriers to care, including raising reimbursement rates paid to dentists who serve the Medicaid population and increasing the number of participating Medicaid providers.


And despite the disparities, having any form of dental insurance significantly increases the odds of seeing a dentist on a regular basis — 54% of privately insured children and 27% of publicly insured children had seen the dentist in the last six months, compared to 12% of children without dental coverage.

According to this study the ratio of these children who regularly go to dentists to those who don't is 1:4 Californian children. What will eventually happen to these kids who didn't even met men and women in dental uniforms and medical scrubs? Regular dental check-up is a necessity especially to children and kids for they are more prone to eating sweet and sugary foods and sometimes forgetting to brush too. Whew! Anyway may this study help a lot and awaken parents and even the authorities that are involved taking the fact that 80% of dentists refuse Medicaid patients and 130 million Americans don't have dental insurance. Great :(


Read more: Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Dental Care For Publicly Insured Children