Complain about a product or service

Kindred Hospital

Arlington

Carol of Irving, TX October 10, 2009

A profit driven health care industry can place more emphasis on making money rather than protection against infectious diseases. Tuberculosis is a contagious disease and often deadly. When a person with active TB cough, sneeze, speak, sing or spit, they expel infectious aerosol droplets. 40,000 droplets are released in a sneeze. Just one single bacterium can cause a new infection. TB bacteria can live in your body without making you sick. One in ten latent infections will eventually progress to an active disease. TB kills more than half of its victims is left untreated.

Kindred Hospital in Arlington did not follow CDC guidelines. NO self-closing device was on the TB patient's door. An anteroom was not available since the patient's bathroom door was a few feet from the main hallway. Employees and visitors in the "isolation room" wore surgical masks which are not effective in preventing inhalation of droplet nuclei. As a nurse, I received a fit testing, but I was not given a respirator with a proper air filter. It's estimated that the US has 25,000 new cases of TB each year. If you think you were exposed with TB disease, you should call your doctor and local health department about getting a TB skin test. Although I just committed career suicide, I can sleep well at night.