There is a good article in Yahoo! Sports by Michael Silver about staph infections. After reading this article last year in L.A. Weekly about staph on Skid Row I have become much more worried about it at work.
In 2005, staph infections hit at least 20 Los Angeles city firefighters, many of whom work on Skid Row. A staph infection landed a deputy city attorney, who works out of the Central Division police station, in the hospital for two weeks. An LAPD helicopter pilot, who helped a homeless man across the street, almost had to have his leg amputated. Two doctors working at a wound-care clinic got infected. A chaplain and a night manager working at the Union Rescue Mission got it. So did the director of public affairs and two other employees at Midnight Mission. Besides Hauck, a deputy chief and a rookie officer at LAPD’s Central Division have been diagnosed with Skid Row staph.
“It is very seldom discussed down here, but it is a big fear for my officers every day,” says Captain Andrew Smith. “There are a lot of things that have been swept under the table, and we are really trying to shine a light on what is happening in Skid Row. I don’t think there is a lot of public awareness of this infection. We convened a meeting with the county one year ago and told them what our concerns are with the virus. I don’t think they were as concerned as we are.”
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services is doing little to address Skid Row staph. Health officials rejected Midnight Mission’s request for a mobile health unit to monitor and treat homeless people. Instead, the health department gave homeless advocates fliers to pass out. “The response was nowhere near what we expected,” says Orlando Ward, Midnight Mission’s director of public affairs, who contracted Skid Row staph, along with his wife and a co-worker. “We are talking about the streets. People who are sleeping outside — wearing the same clothes with untreated wounds. We need people to be educated across the board.”
Staph came on the scene in the 1960s, infecting nursing homes and hospitals, where some 12,000 people nationwide die from infections every year. Health officials do not track the number of staph-related deaths in L.A. County because, like the flu, cases do not need to be reported. The hospital version mutated into a community version that the Centers for Disease Control calls USA 300, dubbed Skid Row staph in this story.
In the mid-1990s, the community strain started creeping into nurseries, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, locker rooms and military bases. It was also popping up among drug users, gay men and children under 2. It was generally affecting people living in crowded conditions and dirty environments who had no access to good cleaning supplies.
The Saskatoon Heath Region has some information on how to prevent staph infection and the City of Toronto has published a wide variety of resources for use by shelters regarding everything from infections to bed bugs.
At the Centre, we have janitors on 16 of every 24 hour day and on top of that the kitchen cleans the dining room three times a day as well as their kitchen (the health inspector called it one of the cleanest kitchens he has ever seen). Despite that part of me freaks out when I read about staph infections in NFL facilities. You know, almost unlimited budgets, loads of cleaning and training staff, and I assume a fairly hygienic group of users and they can’t control it.
