In-hospital stroke patients more likely to die: study

From the Ottawa Citizen:
One of the worst places to be if you have a stroke is in a hospital, new Canadian research suggests.

A study based on thousands of Ontario residents found patients who have a stroke while they're already in hospital wait twice as long for a brain scan and twice as long for a clot-busting drug as people who come to an emergency room with a stroke. They are also more likely to die.

"You would think, naively, that if someone has a stroke while in hospital -- given that we keep emphasizing the concept that 'time is brain' and the sooner you get to treatment, the better -- you would anticipate that they would have the best treatment," says Dr. Frank Silver, co-principal investigator of the Registry of the Canadian Stroke Network and medical professor at the University of Toronto. ...more