Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Life threatening news about hospital food


Life threatening news about hospital food

November 6, 2012 by Blanche Levine
Filed under Food
Tue. Nov. 6, 2012 by Blanche Levine
(NaturalHealth365) Just when you thought hospital food couldn’t get any worse – it just did. A new report says that hospital food is frequently contaminated with a very dangerous bug called clostridium difficile (C. diff). These bacteria can be life threatening to weak and elderly patients – the very people that need our help the most at hospitals.
A medical nightmare served on a plate – everyday
Clostridium difficile bacteria cause diarrhea and intestinal conditions such as colitis. It is the most frequent identified cause of hospital-acquired infectious diarrhea. Symptoms include watery diarrhea, fever, loss of appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, and is capable to progress to colitis, sepsis and can kill the patient.
These bacteria are found in feces, and people can become infected if they touch surfaces, which are contaminated with feces and then touch their mouth or other mucous membranes.
Hospitals are the perfect environment for infections
A new survey of United States hospitals showed life-threatening intestinal infections are up to 20 times greater than previously believed. This means about 7,178 patients battle C. diff infections every day – according to a hospital survey.
The costs of treating each patient went from about $2,500 to $7,000 and at the same time the severity of the disease is increasing, which is resulting in more complications and higher mortality. Can we really expect to get healthy in a hospital?
Hospital patients don’t know they are being poisoned at meal time
Houston researchers found that one-fourth of nearly 100 hospital food samples tested positive for C. diff. The worst of the offenders were: turkey, chicken, egg products, vegetables, fruit, and desserts. This was mostly cooked foods, and it covers just about everything that is included on the hospital food tray.
The researchers tested about 2 tablespoons of each food item served over 80 days at a university hospital in Houston. Here’s what they found: 50 percent of the turkey samples; 33 percent of 12 seafood samples; 12 percent of the beef servings; 13 percent of the pork servings; 43 percent of the chicken chicken and egg products; 22 percent of the vegetables and fruits servings and 60 percent of the dessert samples – all tested positive for this nasty (disease-causing) bacteria.
How can we allow hospitals to continually harm people? No healthcare institution should be given the right to operate until they can prove they are safe.
A medical doctor warning adds insult to injury
Stuart Cohen MD, professor of medicine at the University of California School of medicine warns us, “you should be more concerned about whether your doctor or nurse is washing their hands before touching you than about anything coming up from the cafeteria.”
Dr. Cohen doesn’t believe that contaminated food is the issue – he thinks it’s contaminated healthcare workers. But, does it really matter where the bacteria is coming from? We already know that hospital food is sickening and conventional healthcare institutions are ineffective at making us feel great. So, if you have to go to a hospital, bring your own food and get out of there as fast as possible.

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