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 Some hospital dangers seem to go with the territory. Hospitals are breeding grounds for infection, including potentially deadly infections, which are resistant to antibiotics. That's because hospitals house many infected patients, and people with low immune systems are easy victims. Negligence while using invasive devices, such as needles and catheters, can carry germs easily from one body into another. Another danger: Medication mix-ups. The average hospital patient receives ten different drugs; these often have look-alike labels or sound-alike names, and are prescribed by many different specialists who either don't communicate with one another or who leave notes in cryptic handwriting. Human error - which exists everywhere - can be disastrous in hospitals. Doctors and nurses who fail to wash their hands between patients can spread infections. Busy nurses may mistake micrograms for milligrams and give wrong drug doses, or mistake one patient for another and give the wrong drug. Surgeons occasionally forget to remove a sponge or clamp before sewing the patient up; a few have even operated on the wrong side of the body.
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