The Bella Moss Story

Re: The Bella Moss Story

bongo — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:31:56 GMT

oh yeah I have come across this. surely you would need two isolation faciltiies, one for those at risk of infection and those that are infectious?

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Steph Worsley — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 19:20:04 GMT

reverse barrier nursing (as I understand it) is basically putting patients at risk of picking up the infection into isolationas apposed to the patient who is posing the risk. for example neutropaenic patients and surgical patients.....prob not the best thing for the veterinary hospital especially as it will be easier to barrier the infected patient.

we reverse barrier all the neutropaenic patients and un-vaccinated animals so protecting them rather than risking spreading problems round the hospital

Re: The Bella Moss Story

bongo — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:19:57 GMT

We are really cracking down on this where I work at the mo. Can someone tell me what reverse barrier nursing is please? This was mentioned earlier in a post I think about human nursing. I heard that a lot of cases of MRSA are bought in by clients who have been in hospital recently either working or visiting somebody.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Angiy Michael — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 04:03:23 GMT

[quote user="Katy"]

Unfortunately MRSA is everywhere. Most people carry it on their skin, but if they are not ill or do not have open wounds it causes them no trouble.

In the hospital I work at, surgical patients are swabbed for MRSA. it is a simple and quick procedure.

If they are found to have it they are given Octesan liquid to use as a wash twice a day for 5 days, and some mupiricin ointment to put in their nostrils twice a day for 5 days. I don't think they are re-swabbed as this treatment removes the infection.

If any inpatients are suspected of having MRSA they are reverse barrier nursed and given the same treatment.

Nurses uses Aseptic Non Touch Technique when injecting patients and alcohol hand gel is used between patient contact.

Nearly all wards have not had any hospital acquired MRSA infections for years, and no one is particularly worried about MRSA infections unless the patient has septicaemia with it.

Sensible precautions and good hand hygiene practice should be used in all veterinary surgeries as MRSA is everywhere.

Sorry for the essay but simple steps could prevent tragedies like this from happening.

[/quote]In people it is usually standard procedure to treat a positive result then reswab ..usually 5 days after treatment has stopped..this is to check whether treatment is effective or whether the person has been recolonised. It took me 3 cycles of treatment and numerous swabs to shift mine when it was picked up on a routine swab by my unix

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Phrin Vernon RVN — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:00:07 GMT

[quote user="Fuzzyduck"]

Totally agree steph, and no i dont think owners are any kind of resistant infection aware, only yesterday i was once again having the same conversation with a man i had seen 3 days previously and had the same conversation then about keeping his dogs dressing clean and dry, it was filthy and saturated, and he wonders why his dogs foot wound wont heal!!!! He also allows the dog to chew the dressing, lick the wound, replaces the dressings himself sometimes and puts them on too tight and has caused sores where his dressing has rubbed! Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Im not sure some clients can ever be educated, i also almost had an argument with a man who was telling me that it was a well known fact that cats saliva had antibacterial properties and his licking would help the wound heal! He would not have it that it was making it worse and making it infected, would not allow a buster collar, i tried everything i could possibly think of to convice him but he knew best! Apparently my years in veterinary education were wasted!!

[/quote]

I feel your pain!

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Sal the 1st — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:02:15 GMT

ah but Katy dont forget the antiseptic qualities of a dogs tongue and saliva (but must admit it made me want to gip when I heard about the leg ulcers)

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Katy — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 21:37:05 GMT

Ooh some minging stories there girls! Yuck.

There are loads of "superbugs" now. Good hand hygiene all the way at home and at work is best.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Sal the 1st — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 21:22:28 GMT

[quote user="Steph Worsley"]

There are a lot of other multi-resistant bugs around so we need to be aware of all of them not just MRSA

[/quote]

agreed

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Fuzzyduck — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:59:46 GMT

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Steph Worsley — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:41:09 GMT

Practices may be more MRSA aware but are owners?????? no matter how good infection control is in practice what happens when the patient is discharged is out of our control and I am willing to bet that most MRSA infections are actually picked up outside the practice walls.

In the 5 years I have worked where I do I think we have had about 10 suspected and 3 or 4 confirmed MRSA cases, and an MRSP confirmed case. There are a lot of other multi-resistant bugs around so we need to be aware of all of them not just MRSA

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Sal the 1st — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:23:22 GMT

I know the practice I was at took part in a survey run I think through idexx - I was in a very big charity hospital and we took hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of swabs of surgical cases and suspicious outpatient cases. All members of staff were swabbed. With the result we had two cases in a given period in patients (one of them belonging to an owner with MRSA infected leg ulcers which apparently the dog used to lick so gawd knows if the original infection came from the dog or the human) and the other a dog with an external fixator.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Katy — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:08:45 GMT

I do hope so. However a lovely dog that we look after lost his tail to MRSA after he trapped it in a car door and it was repaired at a local referral hospital.

And that was about 2 years ago.

Luckily they caught it in time but he was on morphine and now has a stump instead of a lovely wavy tail.

No excuse for it really.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Fuzzyduck — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:06:08 GMT

It also happened in 2004 thats 8 years ago when MRSA was barely heard of even in hospitals.

I would hope that most practices are more MRSA aware and standards are far better than they were all those years ago, from my own experience standards have improved steadily over the 12 years i have been in practice.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Katy — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:03:41 GMT

Unfortunately MRSA is everywhere. Most people carry it on their skin, but if they are not ill or do not have open wounds it causes them no trouble.

In the hospital I work at, surgical patients are swabbed for MRSA. it is a simple and quick procedure.

If any inpatients are suspected of having MRSA they are reverse barrier nursed and given the same treatment.

Nurses uses Aseptic Non Touch Technique when injecting patients and alcohol hand gel is used between patient contact.

Nearly all wards have not had any hospital acquired MRSA infections for years, and no one is particularly worried about MRSA infections unless the patient has septicaemia with it.

Sensible precautions and good hand hygiene practice should be used in all veterinary surgeries as MRSA is everywhere.

Sorry for the essay but simple steps could prevent tragedies like this from happening.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Sal the 1st — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:01:37 GMT

[quote user="Kerry Haigh"]

It also sparked off a lot of slander towards veterinary staff on certain forums too

[/quote]

indeed - and for quite a few people it put them off ever becoming involved in similar forums again

http://www.robprince.net/mrsa-pets/forum.asp

read some of the posts on there and you may understand why.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Kerry Spain — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:11:12 GMT

It also sparked off a lot of slander towards veterinary staff on certain forums too

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Mark Walsh — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:06:39 GMT

Thank you for the link, made for very interseting reading. The whole website had superb articles and links to help us with improving our infection control techniques. I like to think that in practice I'm am good with the wearing of aprons and use of hand gels in between patients but there is so much more we can all be doing.

Re: The Bella Moss Story

Sara Bastos — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:30:42 GMT

It's a beautiful but tragic story indeed. I was reading and asking myself how that can be possible! This type of infection is a huge risk at pratice, all care is needed to avoid worst consequences. This only takes the people's confidence in our profession, because of mistakes like this. This must be a lesson we take, with no doubt.