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General interest/Health/Money/Politics & Causes/USA

September 11, 2009

Hospital Safety 101: Didn't Mom Teach You to Wash Your Hands?

San Francisco Chronicle Washington Bureau writer Carolyn Lochhead reported today on a new idea somebody had about making hospitals safer: get folks to wash their hands. Hello?

The president of a leading medical standards organization announced a new program Thursday that is designed to improve health care safety practices, starting with a rigorous approach toward hand-washing by hospital staffers.

And this is serious business.

Hand-washing failures contribute to infections linked to health care that kill almost 100,000 Americans a year and cost U.S. hospitals $4 billion to $29 billion a year to combat, said Dr. Mark Chassin, who leads the Joint Commission, which sets standards and accredits hospitals and health care organizations.

Chassin’s announcement came after Hearst Newspapers published the results of an investigation, “Dead by Mistake,” which reported that 247 people die every day in the United States from infections contracted in hospitals.

Anyone who has ever come home from surgery with an infection, or more specifically anyone whose spouse has come home from surgery with an infection (nasty-wound-tending not having been fully explained in those for-better-or-for-worse lines) will applaud the new program, but it’s hard not to wonder what has taken the medical profession so long. Hospitals have found, Lochhead reports, that “caregivers washed their hands less than 50 percent of the time when they should.”

If there’s ever been a good example of potential savings to pay for universal health care, this is one to top the list. Consumers, we who would do well to wash our own hands when visiting or inhabiting hospitals, owe a debt of gratitude to the Joint Commission (and to Hearst Newspapers for the excellent ‘Dead by Mistake’ series.)

Maybe more sinks will be adorned with the sign that gave my husband and me a healthy chuckle during a recent visit to the Kaiser emergency room:

“Hand-wash unto others” it read, “as you would have them hand-wash unto you.”

Hospitals urged to strictly enforce hand-washing.

Politics & Causes

August 20, 2009July 24, 2010

Pelosi Sticks With Public Option

by Fran Johns

Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a gathering of interfaith leaders in San Francisco today (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a press conference in San Francisco this morning at which she reiterated her commitment to a public option in the health reform bill and expressed hope, though with somewhat lowered optimism, for coverage of end-of-life conversations. She did get in a dig at opponents of the latter: In response to a question about whether voluntary reimbursement for discussion of end-of-life care would stay in the bill, Pelosi said, “You know, the language is almost exactly the same as what the Republicans put into the prescription drug bill.”

The press conference, hosted by the San Francisco Interfaith Council, was an apparent reinforcement of the Democrats’ strategy of broadening health reform support among members of religious communities. With leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities arrayed behind her, the Speaker made repeated references to health care for all being a moral issue. Responding to the above question, she said, “People of faith, people in healthcare” and others know that “it makes life better if a person has expressed his or her own wishes. The key to this is that it is voluntary; it serves the purpose of saying what is your wish, rather than someone else having to make a decision you might not want. I don’t know what will happen (to the provision); I surely hope it will stay in.”

Pelosi was unequivocal, however, in her response to questions about the public option and to one reporter’s comment that “some Democrats and liberals are frustrated because it seems you are caving in to the far right.” “Is that you?” she repeated, pointing to herself. “The public option is the best way to go. If anybody can come up with a better alternative we’ll consider it. But the President is not backing off. The co-op might work in some states and that’s fine. There is no way I can pass a bill on health reform without the public option.”

Pelosi was equally emphatic about her intention to retain the 400% of poverty measurement. Hesitantly using the term “seniors,” she said that many people between the ages of 50 and 65 have lost jobs, or may be making just $30,000 to $40,000 per year, and cannot afford needed medical care or prescription drugs. “I believe we have to have the 400% of poverty for them.”

Would the Democrats accept a scaled-down version of health reform? Pelosi repeated her litany of what is needed: reduced costs, improved quality, expanded coverage, affordable care for all; “What are you going to give up? At the end of the day, this is what we must have. And we must have reform of the insurance industry.”

In the small, carefully selected audience assembled at St. James Episcopal Church where her children attended preschool, Pelosi was on her own turf and among friends. And she was characteristically upbeat. “Have we lost control of the debate? I disagree. I have 218 votes, and expect to have more. I am optimistic, and the President is committed to change.”

Health/USA

August 1, 2009

Beavers in Manhattan, Mink in California

by Fran Johns

Maybe beavers have little in common with Boomers, or Beyonders, but after reading T/S Contributor Caitlin Kelley’s Canada/NY beaver piece just now I felt compelled to respond with today’s news of California urban mink. Their newly discovered presence was documented by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Jones:

First, there were beavers. Then otters and muskrats.

And now – as if the Martinez Public Works Department needed more cute, furry mammals paddling around Alhambra Creek – there are mink.

Ten months after the city spent $500,000 to shore up the eroding creek bank, a condition many blamed on the beavers and their obsessive handiwork, a mother mink and four babies were spotted this week cavorting near the beaver’s primary dam, just north of the Escobar Street bridge in downtown Martinez.

The silky, razor-toothed critters have apparently taken up residence in the pond created by the beavers’ dam, along with a variety of other aquatic wildlife.

But then again, maybe there IS some relevance. Recent posts re health and housing, which seem to be atop the news for over-50 generations if not everyone else too these days, have had friends asking if there isn’t something ELSE to write about? Well, yes. Exercise and fitness. The absolute best of which is snagging a half hour or two and heading out to circle the Central Park reservoir or roam around Golden Gate Park, or wherever your city walking place of choice happens to be. Mine is 16th Street, San Francisco, start at the Bay, end at Market (or continue whatever direction from there) and you’ll encounter every ethnic/social/business/industry/arts category you could want and the views aren’t bad at the tops of the hills. But back to the mink:

Mink are native to the area but are highly unusual. They’re more often spotted in the delta or the Sierra Nevada, but their population could be rising because of the decreasing popularity of mink coats, Bell said.

Maureen Flannery, collections manager for the ornithology and mammalogy department at the California Academy of Sciences, also confirmed that the animals in question are Neovison vison, a.k.a. American mink.

The babies probably were born in April or May and will stay with their mother until fall, when they will head out to claim their own territories, she said.

I’ve also had questions about food-and-nutrition writing, this being another biggie for over-50s (under-50s are either already sold on healthy lifestyles or eating pizza and sushi and fries and just not giving a damn about calories and cholesterol.) And fine dining also enters this late-breaking news:

Dan Murphy, owner of Bertola’s restaurant adjacent to the beavers’ dam, was also taking a wait-and-see attitude. Liability concerns over the restaurant’s weakening foundation were one reason the city decided to shore up the creek bank last fall.

“I don’t really care,” Murphy said. “Although I guess the creek’s becoming more and more of a habitat, which is pretty cool.”

Martinez vice mayor Mike Menesini, proclaiming his “a very welcoming city” is waiting to see how this newly-mixed community gets along.

So far, the mink, beavers, muskrats, otters and turtles have adopted an attitude of mutual indifference. The crayfish aren’t so lucky – they’re often dinner for their carnivorous creek-mates.

The Beaver Fest in downtown Martinez today features bagpipes, bluegrass and jazz bands. Dancing in the streets is good exercise too.

Health/Money

July 27, 2009

Waterfront Condos: More on the housing dilemma

by Fran Johns

Waterfront esplanade, expansive views from a sunny terrace, walk to the ballpark — what’s not to love about this housing choice?

Downsizing from a large, Victorian house filled to overflowing with the accumulations of two very active lives, the Langleys of San Francisco decamped, a few months ago, to a new, easy-care, sun-filled two-bedroom condo in the city’s happening-place Mission Bay neighborhood. They love the convenience, the mix of ages and cultures, the freedom from old-house maintenance worries and some unexpected bonuses like new friends living on houseboats from another era who are within conversation range of their 4th floor deck. “We (the new condo development) block the view they used to have all those years,” Judy Langley says, “but there are a lot of trade-offs like getting the creek (which leads into San Francisco Bay) cleaned up, and the park over there…” For the newcomers, the young dog-walkers on the esplanade below, the middle-aged Chinese couple doing tai chi on the common lawn, it is an urban idyll.

Urban condos, even those without kayaks at the door and aged houseboats for neighbors, are an increasingly popular answer to the downsizing dilemma. But the dilemma remains huge and answers are seldom easy.

On the day the Langleys were hosting an Open House in their new digs, my sister was packing the last boxes from the high-ceilinged Boston condo that’s been her family’s home for decades. She and her husband are headed for a New York retirement community to which a physician daughter will also relocate from the west coast. Elsewhere this weekend a childhood friend was finalizing plans for a move from Northern Virginia to a coastal community where her husband will be able to live in a Memory Unit while she lives independently nearby.

These choices typify the variety of factors that go into contemporary downsizing decision-making: Is it affordable? Will I (or my parents) have the care that’s needed? Can life still be good (or even get better?)

And any of these families might also have considered co-housing. Yet another option for Boomers and Beyonders as well as for younger families and individuals, co-housing in some ways harkens back to a simpler, long-ago lifestyle and in other ways could only work in the 21st century. It was the topic of an OWL-sponsored panel discussion on Saturday, and will be tomorrow’s Boomers and Beyond topic.