Fort Wayne Observed

Hospital Staph Infections: a great undercovered story is now covered

Fort Wayne Observed has previously called the hospital infection rate by MRSA and other staph  one of the great undercovered stories in Fort Wayne. In fact, FWOb made that statement nearly a year ago on March 29, 2006.

It is now the subject of a story by the Indianapolis WISH TV 8 I-Team.  Former Fort Wayne television reporter Karen Hensel has the story which includes disclosure of a 200 patient outbreak in staph infections at Parkview Memorial Hospital. 

Ms. Hensel reported:

You go to the hospital to get better, not sicker. There are growing calls for hospitals to report how many patients get an infection while in the hospital. I-Team 8 has spent months in a statewide investigation examining hospital-acquired infections.

Two million Americans get preventable infections every year. The most common, and deadly, is a staph infection known as MRSA. Some experts say it's epidemic. If that many people get sicker in hospitals, why isn't the state of Indiana tracking it?

Even more troubling, I-Team 8 has uncovered what Indiana hospitals want to keep hidden. If 90,000 Americans die from hospital acquired infections every year, how many are Hoosiers and why doesn't the state of Indiana know?

"There is no way to always know that the infection was acquired in the hospital," said Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe.

Christy Greene knows, but she didn't know it at the time. Her newborn son Logan carried bacteria that caused a serious staph infection. He brought it home from the hospital and passed it on to his two-year-old sister, Sydney. Twelve weeks later, Sydney became so ill she required two surgeries.

"I was lucky. Mine's alive, thankfully," Greene said.

Both Sydney and Logan were among more than 200 victims of a dangerous staph epidemic at a Fort Wayne hospital. Greene is one of dozens who filed a lawsuit.

"That's somebody's life. That's not a mistake. You knew. You didn't tell me. Never gave me an option. You call that a mistake?" she said.

The state does not even know if Parkview Hospital reported the outbreak. All Indiana hospitals are supposed to report outbreaks of certain kinds of infections, but they are on an honor system. In fact, the state's germ expert told I-Team 8 no outbreaks were reported over the past six years.

WISH is a sister station of WANE TV News Chanel 15. Both are owned by LIN Broadcasting. It can be expected that News Channel 15 will be rebroadcasting parts of the WISH I-Team story.

Tomorrow: Free in-car cameras in Indiana to watch teen drivers

The Wall Street Journal reported today that, starting tomorrow, American Family Mutual Insurance will offer free installation of DriveCam to its customers with teenage children in Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  The camera system will be targeted to help improve the driving of teen drivers, a high-risk group for death from auto accidents.

As a member of the Drive Alive effort in Allen County, I can only applaud that the system is being made available to American Family clients here first.

Liam Pleven of the Wall Street Journal reports:

There is a curve in the road near Alexander Mougin's house near Oxford, Iowa. The high-school senior used to like to take it hard and sharp - but that was before his car was fitted with a camera capable of recording his driving habits.

Mougin, 18 years old, has been participating in a University of Iowa study to see whether the device and the data it provides can help improve teen driving. The camera, attached to the rear-view mirror, has one lens facing the road and another aimed at the driver. It runs constantly, and slips into recording mode if, for example, the car accelerates rapidly or brakes suddenly. It then preserves about 10 seconds before and after the event that triggered it.

"You don't want to set it off," Mougin says. After 10 months of taking part in the study, he says, "I know I'm a safer driver."

Circle Center Safety

Indianapolis is the subject of increased alarm about the violent crime committed in that city.

The downtown area is not immune. A woman was raped and abducted within a block of Monument Circle earlier this week.

The Indianapolis Star reports:

The woman was parked on the fourth floor of a parking garage at 145 E. Market St. and was placing her laptop computer in her car when a man came up behind her about 4:45 p.m. The man said he had a gun and told her to get in the car and drive, said Sgt. Matthew Mount, spokesman for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

The man initially wanted to get money from a Chase Bank on Monument Circle but decided there was too much traffic and forced the woman to go to a Chase branch at Michigan Street and King Avenue. The IMPD West District headquarters is at 551 N. King Ave.

Challenges filed against primary candidates

Candidate filing challenges were filed this week with the Allen County Election Board.

Two challenges were filed by Ab Crosby of the Allen County Republican Party regarding the candidacies of Thomas Schrader for the Republican nomination for City Clerk and of James Talarico for one of the three Republican At-Large City Council slots.  Both challenges alleged that Mr. Schrader and Mr. Talarico had not voted Republican in the last primary election in which they cast a ballot.

Perennial candidate David Roach filed challenges regarding Mr. Schrader and Mr. Talarico making the same allegations regarding last known party affiliation. 

However,  Mr. Roach also challenged the primary candidacies of Thomas Cook and Tom Henry for the Democratic nomination for mayor.  However, the wording of his own affidavit show the challenges to be without merit.  Mr. Roach made several scurrilous statements about both men.  He states in regards to Mr. Cook: "Please verify or check. Unable to verify through my own investigation."  His statement regarding Mr. Henry is similar.

The Election Board will have to set a hearing on the challenges filed.  It is expected that the two challenges regarding the mayoral candidates will be dismissed.  It cannot be expected that Mr. Roach will muster the decency to withdraw the challenges he filed regarding the two mayoral candidates before the Election Board's action.

Election Board returns Kelty absentee ballot applications

Republican mayoral candidate Matt Kelty has been admonished by the Allen County Election Board over absentee ballot application mistakes.

The Kelty campaign has been sending out absentee ballot applications to Republican voters with their names and addresses filled in, which is permissable. However, the portion of the application to request a ballot for the Republican primary was also pre-completed, which is not allowed.

The Election Board staff has been sending letters out to those submitting these absentee ballot applications informing them that their absentee ballot applications may be challenged and including a new, blank application to complete instead.

They also sent the Kelty campaign a letter informing them that party affiliation cannot be "pre-completed," which can be accesssed on the continuation page.

Photo of Matt Kelty and a group from the F.W. Young Republicans from Kelty's MySpace page

Reflections from a DePauw Delta Zeta sister from Fort Wayne

EXCLUSIVE

Kristin Skowronski of Fort Wayne, a DePauw University student, sent this comment to Fort Wayne Observed after reading the FWOb post about the New York Times report on the Delta Zeta Sorority chapter at DePauw:

I don't have any comment based on the article here, but being a Delta alumna who went through this, as well as a resident of Fort Wayne, I can say that not everything we've seen in national media is accurate, particularly any statements made by Delta Zeta Nationals officers.

Girls had no choice; our observations [told] us that commitment was not really the deciding factor in who stayed and who left, and any mention of a vote that the sorority members made to close the chapter is inaccurate.

It was a vote prompted by nationals after we were told the house would most likely close whether we recruited (and had our hearts broken again) or not, and we voted to skip recruitment in favor of focusing our efforts on strengthening the sisterhood we had. Nationals should not have forced us to make that choice, and they definitely shouldn't be trying to shrug off any blame for this incident on the very girls they hurt.

MORE: CNN has a Keith Oppenheim video report on "girls [ ... ] booted from a sorority because they weren't attractive enough.

Author! Author! Chad Gramling's book now on sale

Chad Gramling's book, Baseball in Fort Wayne, went on sale Monday.  You can buy it on Amazon here or Mr. Gramling reports you can pick it up at Fort Wayne area bookstores.

Mr. Gramling writes:

It is my sincere hope that the Baseball in Fort Wayne will be recognized as much more than a book or a sport. Baseball in Fort Wayne is a passion that has continually been a favorite pastime in the area that touches base in three different centuries. I also hopeful that my broad stroke look at the game in area can serve as a catalyst for continued (or perhaps renewed) interest, research and support of the various baseball and softball leagues and organizations in the city and northeast Indiana. The history of baseball in Fort Wayne is one that should be celebrated.

A well-versed Shoup is on NPR

Veteran Fort Wayne meteorologist Greg Shoup was quoted this morning on National Public Radio's Morning Edition program.  So, don't be surprised when you begin hearing some poetry on News Channel 15. 

The piece was about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow enthusiasts who wrote television meteorologists around the country asking them to incorporate more poetry into their weathercasts.  This  is  in honor of  the anniversary of the great American poet's birth.

Andrea Shea had this in her NPR story:

Marian Carlson, co-chair of the Longfellow Bicentennial Committee, and her cohorts recently e-mailed 1,800 meteorologists across the country the above couplet and others like it. She hopes radio and TV weather reporters will incorporate his verse into their forecasts to honor Longfellow's birthday.

"Maybe he wasn't writing a forecast, but he used this wonderful imagery as a segue into his state of thought," says Carlson. "It often matched the state of the weather."

The day is cold and dark and dreary/It rains and the wind is never weary.

That line resonated with Greg Shoup, a TV weather man in Indiana.

"We had freezing rain, sleet, snow — kind of what they call a wintery mix. Weather people, myself included, are very verbose," Shoup says. "We aren't precise like this is so it's kind of neat that he can fit in two lines what everybody feels about the day."

Shoup says he'll definitely sprinkle his reports with Longfellow.

A dead giveaway

Over on News Channel 15 weather reporter Greg Shoup is conducting drawings for 67 weather radios.

The two Fort Wayne television stations appear to be locked in to techniques that are reminiscent of mid-1980's radio station promotions.  Giveaways and contests might be a signal that television news can have its "jump the shark" moments just like entertainment television programs.

A ratings gamble: Indiana's NewsCenter

Think of it. You might actually win an opportunity to fly to the Caribbean and escape the Fort Wayne television market.

Or maybe not. While the cover of this 18 page booklet from Indiana's NewsCenter tells recipients to "Look inside for details to register to win!" a perusal of the inside pages doesn't say what prizes are being offered.

The inside information does include the "tip" that "During the months of February and March (2/12-3/9) Indiana's NewsCenter will draw names for daily prizes and grand prizes during the 6am newscast on 21 Alive." 

The rules state: "All entries must be received at the station or online by 3pm March 1, 2007.

Granite Broadcasting may wish to contact the folks who are handling their direct mail;  our household only received a booklet on Saturday, February 24th.  It might be a matter of concern forthe promoters of the Cirque du Soleil Live Music Concert, "Delirium," which had "2 Performances Only" on "February 14 & 15."

In addition to display ads for such other advertisers as Niagara Therapy, Allcare Dental and Dentures, Bush Chiropractic and Safe Auto Insurance, the booklet contains feature stories on the Weather Team, the 10 PM newscast, and digital broadcasting. 

The main feature is titled "Indiana's NewsCenter Perks Up the Morning News."  Here's a sample:

Anchors Mary Collins and Ryan Elijah deliver the news and information you need in a fresh, light and personable manner.

Elijah says their on-air chemistry came about quite naturally.  "She's so easy to work with and such a morning person.  It took me a while to get used to the morning hours," he says. "Mary is a perky at 4 a.m. as she is later in the afternoon."

Collins also enjoys working with Elijah because of their rapport and mutual ties to the local community. "The morning show lends itself to having fun with the news rather than simply reading it," she says.  "I love it; I can't believe how much fun I have before 7 a.m."