Showing posts with label bed bugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bed bugs. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

When similes attack


When someone tells you someone is as batty as a bed bug, you'll now have some small frame of reference.

Is what I'm telling you.

Naturally, the following story from The Associated Press comes from the great, yet strangely odd, state of Iowa:

An Iowa hospital working to stop the spread of a bed bug infestation was forced to limit access to care in its psychiatric unit for three days after the insects were discovered in two patients’ rooms, hospital officials said.

Officials at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, a public hospital that serves Polk County, said workers discovered bed bugs in a room during a routine cleaning in early February.

The hospital hired Ecolab, a pest control company, to eradicate the room of the tiny parasites that feed on human blood and spray two adjacent rooms as a precaution.

More bed bugs were later discovered in another room, and the hospital decided to shut down that hallway and several rooms for spraying and cleaning to stop the spread, said Vincent Mandracchia, Broadlawns’ chief medical officer.

“Bed bugs noted during treatment,” reads an invoice from Ecolab, one of four the hospital paid between Feb. 8 and Feb. 28 totaling $550 and released to the Associated Press. “All activity that was found was treated and inspected.”

The three-day process meant the hospital’s mental health and psychiatric center, which normally houses 26, was forced to stop admitting patients. On Feb. 21 and Feb. 22, the patient count dropped to a low of 16, rose to 18 on Feb. 23 and then went back up to capacity after all rooms were reopened, Mandracchia said.

REMEMBER, FOLKS, I don't make this stuff up. I just find it, have a good chuckle and pass it along.

Good night, sleep tight and don't . . . well, you know.