Nosocomial Infections: Mishaps in the Hospital

In the two occasions when my elder brother and I had to bring our mother to the hospital, our younger sister begged off from accompanying us. And even while our mother was confined in the hospital for pneumonia, our sister asked that we excuse her from taking her turn at watching over during the confinement. No, she wasn't particularly concerned about catching pneumonia herself, passed on from our mom, and then taking the infection home to her kids. Rather, she feared contracting an illness from other sources inside the hospital itself - a case of having nosocomephobia.

For some people, my sister included, going to a hospital - not necessarily as the patient - can be worrisome. They cite certain mishaps that can happen to them right inside the hospital, as in contracting hospital-based illnesses, or what are known as nosocomial infections. Even other people who take a trip to a hospital for treatment of certain problems fear that their condition may worsen because of nosocomial infections. There were known cases, in fact, when some patients became critically ill (or even died), not because of their initial illness, but because of an infection or a disease they caught while in the hospital.

Contracting nosocomial infections is not something that's hard to understand, considering that a medical facility, such as a hospital, is full of ailing people from whom emanate a variety of infections, including pneumonia, gastrointestinal microorganisms, and staphylococci (bacteria that cause food poisoning and skin infections). During medical care in a hospital, punctures, cut, perforations, or even hemorrhages can take place. This is when patients are most susceptible to nosocomial infections.