Commentary
Hospital rooms, operating rooms, and medical equipment are so inadequately cleaned that any patient going into a hospital is at risk of getting a deadly superbug. That’s true even if you’re going for the happiest reason of all: to give birth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data shows alarming increases in the most dangerous superbugs: Acinetobacter up 78 percent, Candida auris up 60 percent, and notorious MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) up 13 percent year over year.
When you’re a patient, which room or bed you’re put in largely determines your risk of getting infected. If the previous occupant had an infection, your danger of getting infected with the same organism goes up 583 percent—almost sixfold, according to Columbia School of Nursing research….