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Usually, the effects of MRSA are slight - a minor skin infection or lesion - and treatment is successful. However, the "super bug" can also be resistant to some antibiotics and, if it's not caught in time, can quickly progress into a deadly infection in the blood or bones of its victims. But the medical staff in the Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO) Department of Detention did not let that happen.
"When that first prisoner showed up with a skin infection, lesions, we knew right away they weren't spider bites," said BSO Health Care Manager Carol Shepard. "After we confirmed it was MRSA, we took action immediately to keep it from getting out of hand in our jails."
Shepard and her staff drew up a
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bulletin about MRSA, what it is, what it looks like, how it is usually spread, and more importantly, how to stop it from running wild. The bulletin urges people to wash hands thoroughly and frequently, keep any cuts or wounds clean and covered and avoid contact with wounds or wound dressings from others.
For several days, while Shepard and her crew worked on the rest of their plan, the MRSA bulletin was read to detention deputies at every roll call, to the administrative staff, and to maintenance workers and inmates. Judges and attorneys who might come in contact with inmates were also warned of the potential dangers and what they should do to avoid being infected. The information was not sugarcoated or ambiguous. Nothing was left to chance because this was a very serious and potentially deadly situation.
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Broward County's MRSA Experience
By Carol Shepard and Hugh Graf
They weren't spider bites ...and that was very bad news for the thousands of inmates in the five Broward County Sheriff's Office jails in South Florida.
Just a few weeks earlier, in February 2004, the local newspapers had been writing about a nasty infection invading the jails in Palm Beach County, north of Broward. Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureas, or MRSA, had been a problem in healthcare settings like hospitals and clinics for about 20 years, but now was moving to a new group: jail inmates.
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