It is supposed to be the place to get well, but the dangerous, and deadly, reality is hospital infections are a threat.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says despite progress in fighting healthcare associated infections too many people are contracting infections while in the hospital and many are dying.
On any given day, approximately one in twenty-five U.S. patients has at least one infection contracted during their stay in the hospital. There were about 722,000 infections in 2011 according to the CDC.
"Although there has been some progress, today and every day, more than two hundred Americans with healthcare-associated infections will die during their hospital stay," says CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden.
Victoria Nahum of Atlanta lost her son to a hospital infection. She says her 27 year old son Joshua died because of an infection he contracted while in the hospital. She says the drug resistant infection that surrounded his brain was so virulent "that it actually pushed part of his brain into his spinal column." He died two weeks later.
Pneumonia and surgical-site infections are the most common types of infection with each accounting for about twenty-two percent of all infections.
The challenge is some of the bacteria or so called "nightmare" bacteria are now completely untreatable says Dr. Michael Bell, deputy Director of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotions.
"As a doctor I have nothing left I can offer a patient who has an infection like this," says Dr. Bell.