Infection from the drip line!

[so called]

My daughter had a day patient op yesterday.
This evening I got a call from my Wife to say that our daughter had gone back to the hospital as her arm had started to bruise and swell.
After the initial fears, turns out to be an infection caused from the drip catheta thing.
She's now on a heavy dose antibiotic coarse.
A little taken aback this evening.

Edited by so called on Friday 7th October 17:02

[The_Doc]

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=...

some info, usually not troublesome, best wishes

[so called]

Thanks you very much. I'll forward the document to my Daughter.
I'm out on business in the US this week.
I could hear the concern in my Wife's voice when she called but fortunately my Daughter didn't hang around when she realized there was a problem. She also called the Day Center so that they were aware.

Again, thank you.
Tony.

[Targarama]

Hope she's OK.

On a related topic, has anyone noticed that nurses rarely wear gloves when taking blood etc? I'd have thought it would be important to do so? My wife commented on this as they even do it in the Philippines - some of their practices seem 'cleaner' than ours in general (but not all, many many things...).

[King Herald]

Targarama said:

Hope she's OK.

On a related topic, has anyone noticed that nurses rarely wear gloves when taking blood etc? I'd have thought it would be important to do so? My wife commented on this as they even do it in the Philippines - some of their practices seem 'cleaner' than ours in general (but not all, many many things...).

Some of the more modern hospitals are up to western standards, or better. Brand new Medical City opened where I live in Angeles city, really good, but most of the older ones are still archaic.

Gloves are compulsory in any operation involving fluid transfer, open wounds etc, in any western hospital.

[zeDuffMan]

Gloves are to protect the nurse rather than the patient though. The nurse washes their hands before and after taking blood and cleans the injection site with chlorhexadine, and uses a sterile needle. The gloves are just in a box on the side, not sterile at all, arguably less clean than the nurse's hands. Some gloves make it difficult to palpate veins so some will willingly inject without gloves on knowing the risks of getting another person's blood on their hands and potentially into wounds.

[Targarama]

zeDuffMan said:

Gloves are to protect the nurse rather than the patient though. The nurse washes their hands before and after taking blood and cleans the injection site with chlorhexadine, and uses a sterile needle. The gloves are just in a box on the side, not sterile at all, arguably less clean than the nurse's hands. Some gloves make it difficult to palpate veins so some will willingly inject without gloves on knowing the risks of getting another person's blood on their hands and potentially into wounds.

Thanks.

[JumboBeef]

zeDuffMan said:

Gloves are to protect the nurse rather than the patient though. The nurse washes their hands before and after taking blood and cleans the injection site with chlorhexadine, and uses a sterile needle. The gloves are just in a box on the side, not sterile at all, arguably less clean than the nurse's hands. Some gloves make it difficult to palpate veins so some will willingly inject without gloves on knowing the risks of getting another person's blood on their hands and potentially into wounds.

I'll just add, I always wear gloves for this sort of procedure because I've had, more than once, patients tell me afterwards they are Hep/HIV+.

Anyway, if you do it right, nothing other than the sterile needle should touch the area. Hands and gloves should never touch the area once it has been cleaned with a wipe.