MRSA and Infection Control in LTC...??

Hi,

I just started a new job at a LTC that is affiliated with a local hospital. To my surprise, there are a lot of patients with known MRSA, and not just in their nares. According to the CDC, when someone is colonized or infected with mrsa other than in the nares, the person needs to be on contact isolation. Yet in this LTC, there is no such thing, and I am a little concerned about this.The policy is that the site that is infected needs to be covered. So for one resident who has mrsa present on his scalp, this means, he is wearing a baseball cap... this does not seem like real infection control to me. There is also no designated equipment for the mrsa patients, so unless you have a conscientious aide who remembers to wipe everything with a saniwipe all the time, chances are mrsa has free reign.... is this normal? is mrsa just a part of LTC that we have to live with? How worried are you about possibly contracting it with this lack of precautions? At the nursing home where I worked before, I only knew of one resident who had mrsa.... but I was told that they probably just weren't testing for it, so the numbers may have been higher. What are the stats for LTC mrsa....does anyone know?

Thanks!!