Clinic joins pledge to buy meat raised without antibiotics

By Kaye Spector

Plain Dealer Health and Medical Writer

 

Antibiotics are among the greatest discoveries in medicine. But the Cleveland Clinic doesn’t serve them on a plate to its patients, employees or visitors.

The Clinic is among nearly 300 hospitals that have signed a pledge with the international environmental coalition Health Care Without Harm to buy only meat raised without antibiotics.

All the meat dished up to Clinic patients throughout the system and sold in its cafeterias is to be antibiotic-free, under specifications given to the Clinic’s food service provider, AVI Food Systems, said Bill Barum, the hospital’s senior director of hospitality.

“It was to align ourselves with all the appropriate actions that have been going on in the line of food supply: responsible supply, responsible growing — basically everything to do with sustainability and environmental strategy,” he said. “It played very well into our mission statement. We have to walk the talk.”

The antibiotic-free promise is part of an eight-point pledge that includes purchasing locally raised food and minimizing or reusing food waste.

Health Care Without Harm and the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming publicized signers of the pledge on Tuesday to take aim at the practice of giving antibiotics to healthy animals being raised for meat. The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health will hold a hearing today on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.

The two groups say the practice promotes development of drug-resistant bacteria, which can then infect humans who work with the animals or eat their meat. Some of these drug-resistant bacteria can be fatal, causing death within 48 hours.
Up to 70 percent of antibiotics sold in the United States are routinely fed to healthy poultry or livestock to promote growth and weight gain, the Pew campaign said.

“This is an extremely dangerous practice,” said Dr. Lance Price, director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute’s Center for Metagenomics and Human Health in Flagstaff, Ariz. “It hastens the day when our antibiotics fail.”

The amount of antibiotic use in food animals is unknown because use of antibiotics in food animal production is unregulated. But scientists have traced some resistant bacteria found in humans back to poultry and dairy cattle.

“Hospitals play a vital role. Their purchasing power can change markets,” said Jamie Harvie, of Health Care Without Harm.
Late last month, the Food and Drug Administration released a draft of voluntary guidelines in which the agency acknowledged that antibiotic use for growth promotion is inappropriate.

The two groups support legislation pending in Congress to reform reporting and monitoring requirements for drug manufacturers and food producers and to curtail the use of antibiotics on industrial farms for healthy animals.

 

Expansion of University Hospitals program brings health care home to Slavic Village

 

By Kaye Spector

Plain Dealer Health and Medical Writer

 

After a hemorrhagic stroke last fall that paralyzed one side of her body, 72-year-old Trudy Greene came home to a hospital bed set up in the former dining room of her Slavic Village house.

The widow's adult sons moved in to take care of her around the clock: Lee, who works evenings, is there with her in the morning and afternoons; his younger brother Daniel works days and is there with her in the evenings.

Although she was home, Trudy Greene still needed lots of medical attention. But trips to the doctor's office were arduous. For a while, she had a breathing tube in her throat and she needed to bring an oxygen tank with her. The sons called a private ambulance or carried her themselves down the steps leading out of the house and into a car.

But a recent expansion of University Hospitals Case Medical Center's House Calls program to Cleveland's Slavic Village neighborhood means that Greene no longer has to leave home to see her doctor. Instead, the physician comes to her. And, when needed, a nurse, nurse practitioner or social worker can visit as well.

 

A $1 million gift from the Third Federal Foundation supported the program's growth and its ability to create partnerships with organizations, including Meals on Wheels, the Golden Age Center and churches.

The $55 million foundation, created through the 2007 minority public stock offering of Slavic Village-based Third Federal Savings & Loan, supports charitable organizations in the communities in which it operates.

The foundation is a major supporter of the Cleveland School District, Cleveland Central Catholic High School, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland, University Settlement and Habitat for Humanity and has made numerous grants focused on education and community redevelopment efforts to smaller institutions.

Third Federal spokeswoman Jennifer Rosa said via e-mail that the foundation chose the University Hospitals program because of its good track record in other neighborhoods.

“By investing in this program, we can give back to an elderly population that has given so much to Cleveland and Northeast Ohio,” she said.

Patients in the program are frail and fragile, said Dr. Peter DeGolia, House Calls' medical director. They represent the 15 percent of Medicare recipients who spend 85 percent of Medicare dollars in the last two years of life, he said.

“We work closely with patients and caregivers to help people remain where most people want to be – in their home,” DeGolia said.

Trudy Greene has lived in the Cullen Drive house, its living room adorned with childhood photos of her two sons, since 1996. Her husband died in 1997.

“This has been great for us,” son Lee Greene said as he watched Dr. Karen Parker examine his mother on a recent sunny morning. “She wanted to come home. I felt like we could do it.”

Parker chatted brightly with her patient about how much she was eating, asked about her pain medications and gave her some advice on how to deal with a dry mouth, before taking her vitals.

Bottles of hydrogen peroxide and moisturizing lotions sat behind glass doors on shelves that formerly housed china and tchotchkes. An oxygen tank stood in the corner.

“Seeing the physical environment really shows you where the barriers are,” Parker said. “The information you get on a house visit is astonishingly better.”

The house call visits also last longer than the typical 15-minute office visit. During her morning at the Greene home, Parker had time to troubleshoot problems Lee said he had obtaining a particular pain prescription for his mother and helped him make plans to get his mother a leg brace.

“They take care of me,” Lee Greene said, nodding toward Parker. “I don't know what I would do without them.”