MRSA - Can it be that hard to eradicate?

In this, the day and age of antibiotics and anti bacterial cleaning agents are we any better off then in the days before Florence Nightengale discovered the art of clean hospitals?

It doesn't seem like it. Many, many years ago the doctors thought that the dirtier and bloodier their aprons where, the better a doctor they were, not realizing that they were actually responsible for the spread of the diseases they were meant to help cure.

Just in case it wasn't obvious, it was Florence Nightengale who finally worked out that cleanliness prevented the transmission of diseases. So how did we end up with MRSA and C-difficile?

The explanation is simple. MONEY! How has what is commonly called the roof of all evil been responsible for MRSA?

1. Cleaning stopped being in house. In the majority of hospitals the cleaning is contracted out to the lowest offer. The majority of these cleaning companies pay minimum wage. So if you are on a minimum wage will you care?

2. With cleaning being out sourced, it means that nurses uniforms are washed by nurses. They wear their uniforms to work, which means that are on trains, buses, in their cars, running into the shop to get some groceries in their UNIFORMS. This is not the most hygienic practise, and could equally be responsible for the super bugs developing.

3. Anti Bacterial agents - Now this has been a well know fact for MANY years, and still they are in use. When you use an anti bacterial agent you kill germs, and if within a certain timeframe germs land on the same surface they are instantly killed. However germs are resilliant, and one of the most adaptable living organisms on the planet. This is another source of the super bugs.

4. Although not such a common practise in the last 5(ish) years there was a time that anti biotics were prescribed ALL the time. This has meant that people have built up a resistance to anti biotics, so should they contract MRSA their high tolerence to anti biotics will not help matters.

In the Netherlands (or Holland as it's more commonly known) they HAVE almost eradicated MRSA. They have instigated a program called "Seek and Destroy". This is how they have done it:

1. They have cleaned with steam and cleaners every hospital from top to bottom, including vents, skirting boards, the tops of doors, light switches. Every visible and hidden surface.

2. When someone who has been in a hospital in another country, the patient is automatically put into quarantine and a swab is taken.

3. If they have MRSA, they will stay in quarantine and given high doses of anti biotics,

4. Anywhere the infected patient has been is completely cleansed

5. Nurses shifts are timed that they can change into their uniforms. They do not take their uniforms home with they are cleaned inhouse.

So to help to eradicate MRSA, we need to bring back the Florence Nightengale ethos of clean, clean, clean. I don't think it should be so hard to do, we just need administrators to loosed the purse strings!