Great discount shopping deals, silent auction, food and fun for ONE DAY ONLY can be found this Sunday December 14th at the ASAP Holiday Boutique and the proceeds go to a worthy cause, the Alliance for Safety Awareness for Patients (ASAP). 1:00 PM TO 4:00 PM Domini Salon 201 N. Westmoreland Ave. #109 Los Angeles, Ca 90004213-389-7896 Phone
Some of you may remember Alicia Cole. For the last two and half years she has been battling a man-eating flesh eating disease...
It is a form of the infection MRSA called Necrotizing Fasciitis(NF). Because of lax sterilization practices Alicia contracted this infection at Burbank Saint Josephs Hospital, a top notch hospital in Los Angeles area. She has now created the Alliance for Safety Awareness for Patients (ASAP)a non-profit who's goal it is not to have anyone suffer as she has.
Alicia Cole, is now on the slow road to recovery although not entirely out of the woods yet. Her days are spent changing the gauze on her yet unhealed gaping wounds in her abdomen and with what little energy she has left Cole is trying to make sure this never happens to anyone else.
The Sherman Oaks, California resident and actress has become the poster child
for hospital-acquired infections, which kill around 100,000 Americans each year.
“This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know how she survived it,” RN Chris Cahill tells IB News. The public health nurse worked in infection control for 30 years for the state Department of Health Services and has become familiar with Cole’s case.
Federal estimates are 6 to 10% of hospital patients will contract some form of infection. About one-third of patients die unless the disease spreads to internal organs, as it did with Cole. Then fatality rates rise to about 70 percent.
NF is, like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a form of hospital acquired infection that is difficult to contain with antibiotics. NF can be caused by Staph or more commonly the group A Streptococcal (GAS) bacterium, which also causes strep throat. It is a particularly aggressive bacterial infection that can rapidly spread through the blood destroyingskin, fat and tissues and eventually can shut down the organs.
Alicia in better times
The first symptom of a hospital acquired infection is a high and sudden fever within 48 hours of admittance to a hospital for another condition. No one knows why in some cases these aggressive infections can affect an otherwise healthy patient, as was Cole.
Lying in the Intensive Care Unit after five surgeries Cole tells IB News, she made a promise. “Lord just let me live and I’ll make sure no one goes through this” she says.
And she’s making good on her promise.
She has established the website www.Amendthecap.com to create awareness about California’s medical malpractice cap of $250,000 for pain, suffering and emotional distress, even if your injury is caused by the hospital.
Cole is telling her story to the National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation is part of an online community of thousands.
As a consumer advocate, Cole has created a compelling and articulate video on YouTube where she stands outside of the Los Angeles County Health Department just before testifying before a state advisory committee urging hospitals to make public their rates of infection and failures of surgical procedures. Restaurants get a letter grading, why can’t hospitals she says.
Read a complete interview of Alicia's Drama and How important it is to have friends and family by your bedside when having surgery at injuryboard.com
Some of you may remember Alicia Cole. For the last two and half years she has been battling a man-eating flesh eating disease...
It is a form of the infection MRSA called Necrotizing Fasciitis(NF). Because of lax sterilization practices Alicia contracted this infection at Burbank Saint Josephs Hospital, a top notch hospital in Los Angeles area. She has now created the Alliance for Safety Awareness for Patients (ASAP)a non-profit who's goal it is not to have anyone suffer as she has.
Alicia Cole, is now on the slow road to recovery although not entirely out of the woods yet. Her days are spent changing the gauze on her yet unhealed gaping wounds in her abdomen and with what little energy she has left Cole is trying to make sure this never happens to anyone else.
The Sherman Oaks, California resident and actress has become the poster child
for hospital-acquired infections, which kill around 100,000 Americans each year.
“This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know how she survived it,” RN Chris Cahill tells IB News. The public health nurse worked in infection control for 30 years for the state Department of Health Services and has become familiar with Cole’s case.
Federal estimates are 6 to 10% of hospital patients will contract some form of infection. About one-third of patients die unless the disease spreads to internal organs, as it did with Cole. Then fatality rates rise to about 70 percent.
NF is, like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a form of hospital acquired infection that is difficult to contain with antibiotics. NF can be caused by Staph or more commonly the group A Streptococcal (GAS) bacterium, which also causes strep throat. It is a particularly aggressive bacterial infection that can rapidly spread through the blood destroyingskin, fat and tissues and eventually can shut down the organs.
Alicia in better times
The first symptom of a hospital acquired infection is a high and sudden fever within 48 hours of admittance to a hospital for another condition. No one knows why in some cases these aggressive infections can affect an otherwise healthy patient, as was Cole.
Lying in the Intensive Care Unit after five surgeries Cole tells IB News, she made a promise. “Lord just let me live and I’ll make sure no one goes through this” she says.
And she’s making good on her promise.
She has established the website www.Amendthecap.com to create awareness about California’s medical malpractice cap of $250,000 for pain, suffering and emotional distress, even if your injury is caused by the hospital.
Cole is telling her story to the National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation is part of an online community of thousands.
As a consumer advocate, Cole has created a compelling and articulate video on YouTube where she stands outside of the Los Angeles County Health Department just before testifying before a state advisory committee urging hospitals to make public their rates of infection and failures of surgical procedures. Restaurants get a letter grading, why can’t hospitals she says.
Read a complete interview of Alicia's Drama and How important it is to have friends and family by your bedside when having surgery at injuryboard.com