The truth about drug-resistant superbugs sickening hospital patients is even worse than what the headlines suggest. A report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces a “shocking” increase in carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae infections – which tripled from 2019 to 2023 and caused an estimated 1,100 deaths. But the ugly truth is, dirty hospitals are causing these deaths, not CRE.

CRE are bacteria new to the U.S. since 2001 that can only be treated with IV antibiotics, not oral medications. Half the time, not even IV medications work, and the patient dies.

The CDC reports that CRE spread in hospitals because health care workers skip cleaning their hands between patients, and hospitals fail to clean rooms and medical equipment, even devices inserted in patients to diagnose them. Ugh!

That’s the same reason more common infections also spread from patient to patient in hospitals, causing 100,000 deaths a year.

CRE are merely a red flag. The problem is far bigger than one germ. As many more common hospital infections become drug-resistant, going into a hospital will be too unsafe unless hospitals clean up.

Cleanliness is the first line of defense to protect patients from killer germs. But many hospitals refuse to make it a priority.

Shockingly, the No. 1 predictor of which patients get a hospital infection is what room or bed they’re assigned to. Not their age or the illness that caused them to come to the hospital. Their room assignment.

If a patient is put in a room where the preceding patient had an infection, the risk of getting infected goes up almost fivefold, according to research in the American Journal of Infection Control. The previous patient was discharged, but germs were left behind on the bedrail, call button, curtain, and mattress. All invisibly lurking to sicken the next patient.

Beds are cauldrons of infection-causing germs.

Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, is the most prevalent infection and kills nearly 30,000 Americans a year – mostly hospital patients. It’s caused by oral-fecal contamination. Traces of one patient’s feces get into another patient’s mouth. How could such a gross thing happen in a hospital?

Easy – placing the patient in a bed with a dirty mattress.

Emory University scientists tracked the fate of patients placed in a bed where a preceding patient – even 90 days ago – had C. diff. The risk of getting C. diff more than doubles. Mattresses absorb bodily fluids and are usually only inspected once a year. Scientists conclude that being put in a bed after a C. diff patient, even after three months, is “significantly associated” with being infected.

Here’s the bottom line. The CDC has been sounding the alarm about drug-resistant infections for at least 15 years. Former CDC Director Tom Frieden coined the phrase “nightmare bacteria” about CRE back in 2013. Well, the nightmare has spread rapidly to many more hospitals, and one of the chief causes is still with us, though it can be remedied if only the agency mustered the will to do it.

The CDC should be setting rigorous, specific standards for cleaning hospitals instead of the vague, worded blather it calls guidelines. Are you listening, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?

Until 1970, hospitals routinely tested surfaces for bacterial contamination. Then the American Hospital Association and the CDC jointly advised hospitals to stop routine testing. The rationale apparently was that if patients got infected, they could be treated with antibiotics, which had come into wide use.

That’s no longer true. The drugs don’t work against many of the superbugs, including CRE. Lax hospital hygiene is dooming patients to sickness and death from infections – whether it’s a new, rare organism or a dreaded, common one like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or C. diff.

As drug resistance increases, the danger will soar unless hospitals clean up.

New Yorkers should be especially outraged. New York State is one of the hospital capitals of the nation. Yet hospital infection rates are higher here than the national average, according to the state Department of Health. Not good for patients and lousy for business.

If you’re visiting a loved one in the hospital, skip bringing flowers and candy. Instead, bring a canister of bleach wipes and wipe down the bedrail, call button, and other surfaces everyone touches.

A study at the Mayo Clinic showed that wiping the high-touch surfaces around the bed once a day with a bleach wipe reduced C. diff infections by 86%.

That simple step could save a life.

The question is, why isn’t every hospital doing that?

Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and Chairman & Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths at Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.

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The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.