Thanks to the reader who alerted me to this story in the Sacramento Bee: Swine flu fatal to local cancer nurse. Excerpt:
A cancer nurse at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael has died of the H1N1 flu, becoming the first reported health care worker in California killed by the new variant of swine flu.
"We're very concerned that a nurse died," said Jill Furillo of the California Nurses Association, adding that the death underscores the need for strong infection controls to protect nurses and patients.
Mercy San Juan does not know whether the nurse caught the flu on the job or elsewhere, but it has notified all patients who came in contact with her when she might have been infectious, said hospital spokesman Bryan Gardner.
Karen Ann Hays died July 17 of a severe respiratory infection, pneumonia and H1N1, according to her death certificate.
She also had methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that is resistant to many antibiotics.
