Results tagged “medicine”

The drug-resistant infection MRSA--a potentially deadly "superbug"--had to face the bacteria-fighting Washington legislature on Monday, as they unanimously passed a bill requiring Washington hospitals to screen (via nasal swabs) for MRSA in high-risk patients. The MRSA bill now awaits Gov. Chris Gregoire's signature. If passed, hospitals would begin screening on January 1, 2010. Washington would become the fifth state to mandate MRSA nasal swabbing...err, testing.

The voter-approved Death With Dignity act, known as Initiative 1000 in November 's election, means that hospitals now have to figure out how to implement the new law--or if they want to offer the option at all. So far, Harborview and the UW Medical Center are the two major hospitals in Seattle who have decided to participate, meaning their physicians would provide the life-ending medication and would be present during the dose administration. It looks like many of the state's hospices will not be formally participating, but would still work with patients and their families who could obtain the prescription elsewhere before and after the act itself.

The state has finally caught on to the truth, thanks to dogged and brave investigation from the Seattle Times: MRSA, a potentially fatal, antibiotic-resistant strain of staph scourging the nation's hospital patients and other sufferers at exponentially increasing rates, is a big deal and pretending it's either inevitable or non-existent won't make it go away. We're not sure why it took so damn long for this to become a rule, but the Times announces that it is at last now mandatory for Washington hospitals to report MRSA incidences.

Initiative I-1000 is the Death With Dignity Initiative that would allow end-stage, terminally ill patients to have access to prescribed life-ending medication. The Times elegantly argues, "On the grounds of compassion for the suffering, and recognition of the individual as a moral agent, death with dignity is a right that should be allowed." Attorney Margaret Dore objects to I-1000's exact phrasing because it "would put vulnerable persons at risk of abuse (and worse) at the hands of others." And finally, local doctors are ambivalent.

Despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal in the State of Washington and the Seattle Police Department are paid to uphold said laws, the SPD handed over 12 ounces of illegally seized medicinal marijuana to the DEA. The SPD turned the medical marijuana to the DEA at the request of U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan, who asked for it to be destroyed.

After a possibly illegal Tuesday raid on an office providing care, resources, and referrals to medicinal marijuana patients, Seattle Police have agreed to return patient files and a computer hard drive that were taken during the incident. The SPD does, however, refuse to return 12 ounces of dried marijuana and two bongs they seized Tuesday. Police have told Martin Martinez, owner of the office that was raided, that he will not be facing criminal charges and that the investigation was closed.