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CNN Live Today

Interview with Michael Berens

Aired July 22, 2002 - 11:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: A newspaper investigation says that life-threatening infections are contaminating the nation's hospitals, killing tens of thousands of people each year. The "Chicago Tribune" reports more than 100,000 deaths were linked to hospital infections in 2000, and that three quarters of those could have been prevented. The figure from the centers for disease control was slightly lower, 90,000 deaths in 2000. Still, the CDC ranks hospital infections as the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.

And joining us from Chicago right now is Michael Berens. He wrote the "Tribune" article, and you must do anything you can to stay out of a hospital after putting this article together.

MICHAEL BERENS, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": It's amazing, isn't it? Hospitals are obviously safe places, but it is a place you do not want to go to unless you absolutely have to.

KAGAN: You point out in the article why hospitals are such a good place for infections, for germs to move in. The temperature is right, you have tons of sick people, and apparently, they are not the cleanest places around.

BERENS: No, the cleanliness is the most disturbing aspect, 75% of the nation's hospitals since 1995 have been cited for serious cleanliness problems, and this includes rooms that weren't clean, doctors who weren't washing hands before surgery, nurses who shuttled bed to bed without some of the basic fundamental sanitation concerns.

KAGAN: Of washing their hands, and you also point out in the article some nurses say, Oh, come on, that's ridiculous. How can you expect us to wash our hands after every patient contact? If we see 150 patients a day, then our hands are practically falling off from washing them all the time.

BERENS: Well, the nurses are absolutely correct in many respects, and that is why we have to find a solution. Today's work environment puts fewer nurses with more and sicker patients. They are unable to provide the basic care that they once provided, which is why infection rates, over all, in this nation are soaring.

KAGAN: Something else that caught my attention from your article was cutbacks. If a hospital has to cut back, one place they go right to is the cleaning staff. You have fewer people cleaning your hospital, you have a dirtier hospital, and more chance for infection. BERENS: Whenever any corporation wants to cut back, payroll is the first target, and with the cleaning staffs, they are one of the more invisible workplace populations, and they are least paid and, I guess, least missed from a public point of view. It is just that their absence has devastating impact on infections.

KAGAN: I thought it was interesting that by law, hospitals don't have to reveal the deaths that they have from infections, so I was wondering how you guys put your numbers together.

BERENS: They don't have to reveal infections, many do. However, when the federal government or state public health authorities go in, and specifically the CDC, they call out those infection rates as part of their investigation. So if you pore through the reports, which is painstaking and meticulous, and took us over a year, you can get to those infection numbers.

KAGAN: And you do share some stories of some people who go into hospitals as not terminally ill -- I mean, they are sick, that's why they are there, but something that should just take a couple days, and just end up with horror stories when they come down with these infections.

BERENS: One of the most common procedures in America today is bypass surgery, cardiac bypass surgery. And we are just finding hundreds -- even actually thousands of infections where people are being opened up, so to speak, in the nursing -- or in the operating room, and a germ is getting into their chest, and it causes either death or just crippling injuries for the rest of their life.

KAGAN: OK, Michael, so it is one thing to scare your readers and have them do that. What if you are someone who is going into the hospital, perhaps for elective surgery, or maybe you have a loved one in there right now. What can you do, beside stand guard and make sure everyone who has contact with your loved one washes their hands?

BERENS: I think there's two things I would do. I would check with the regulatory authorities, both state and federal, and ask for the inspection reports. Hospitals are generally required to make those inspection reports available. So, you can get a sense of their history very quickly. The other is very basic. You just have to be your own sentinel. You have to watch and demand that they are washing their hands.

KAGAN: It seems like it is kind of a germy week at the "Tribune" this week. Tomorrow, you are talking about dangerous antibiotic resistant germs that are actually spreading from hospitals into the regular community.

BERENS: What we're finding, and what the nation's health care industry is finding, is that germs that once lived exclusively in hospitals ten years ago are now thriving independently in the community. In short, you don't have to go to the hospital to be infected by a hospital germ.

KAGAN: Scary stuff. Michael Berens from the "Chicago Tribune." Tell folks your Web site if they want to learn more.

BERENS: It is www.chicagotribune.com.

KAGAN: Thanks for stopping by. Stay healthy.

BERENS: Thank you.

KAGAN: Stay out of the hospital.

BERENS: I'll try.

KAGAN: Stay clean.

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