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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Hospital Infection

District Hospital Infected.

Like many hospitals nationwide, South Tyneside District Hospital in Harton Lane, South Shields is suffering an outbreak of a "virulent bug". Staff are very wary of describing it's effects or giving much information about it's name, however, my source within the hospital confirms that dozens of patients and many visitors have contracted the virus over the past five days, which results in about 48 to 72 hours of painful stomach cramps, vomitting, and putrid diahorrea. Those who are aged and seriously ill are at particular risk of severe complications. Wards 1 and 20 have been closed to new admissions, and wards 10 and 11 have seen rooms systematically emptied whilst matresses, sheets, blankets, and curtains have been taken away for high temperature boil washing and the rooms given over to specialist cleaning teams. Even the hospital's chaplain is off work work suffering the effects of this bug.

My own personal experience as a regular visitor over the past month confirms the outbreak, my father, my brother, my mother, and myself have all suffered, and in the ward which I visited this evening to see my mother not a single one of the six women patients were not affected.

NHS trusts are not doing enough to stop patients contracting a potentially fatal infection, watchdogs say.

The virulent bug Clostridium difficile caused just under 1,000 deaths in 2003, figures for England show. The Health Protection Agency and the Healthcare Commission found a third of the English trusts surveyed do not routinely follow official guidelines.

Following the award of GBP 1.6 million to Dr. Fayi Awotona, the South Tyneside Healthcare Trust stated that patient services would not suffer; bearing in mind that she had her salary paid for three years whilst suspended before the final settlement at an Industrial Tribunal, and the awarding of legal costs against the Trust, the total cost to the Trust could have been closer to GBP 3 million. Medical and nursing staff are required to work overtime but it is unpaid, time off in lieu will be given as and when it can be managed. Employees who go sick are not replaced from the traditional nursing bank, instead wards have to cope as best they can, today for example, in the ward that I visited, the notice board announced that there was one staff nurse and one auxilliary on duty! It is understandable that cleaning routines are not necessarily complied with in these circumstances, but whilst patient services may not be suffering, other areas of the hospital are being hard hit.

I had cause to visit Sunderland Eye Infirmary last month with my father and as soon as we walked through the doors it became immediately apparent that they operate very strict cleaning and disinfecting regimes there. Some readers may recall, from many years ago, that there was a memorable "hospital smell" in these places, the Ingham Infirmary sticks in my memory as one you could smell from the outside! It pervaded your clothing and seemed to hang around in your nostrils for some days afterwards, this was a clear sign of a clinic floor clean enough to eat your meals off. Nurses scrubbed and cleaned every floor and wall of a ward at the beginning of their shift, and also at the end, Matron patrolled regularly to supervise and regulate this routine. It's a shame that other regional hospitals are not as fastidious as Sunderland Eye Infirmary, then outbreaks of infections would be much reduced.

Elected local councillors have a duty to scrutinise local NHS services on behalf of local people. They do this through council "health scrutiny committees" which:

* Look into the daily operation and long-term planning of surgeries, hospitals and health centres
* Write reports and make recommendations to help things improve
* Have powers to call NHS managers to meetings to answer questions
* Must be consulted by the NHS before major changes to local health services

Health scrutiny committees are there to represent local concerns and welcome input from local people. Meetings are normally held in public and your input can help determine what health service issues they look at in detail.

I would be grateful if our appointed representatives to the South Tyneside Healthcare Trust would start asking some very serious questions about the ability of the service to provide a clean, infection free environment, and the true financial impact of the Awotona case.

# posted by Curly : 10:15 pm

Comments:

On 24th March 2005 my mother, a healthy, active and independent 85 year old, went into hospital in London with what was thought to be septic arthritis of the knee. She was treated with antibiotics as a matter of course. She then developed vomiting and diahorrea.The doctors did not seem too worried and mentioned C. Diff as the cause but said it was easily treated and not to worry. This was the first time I had ever heard of C. Diff but my daughter in law who is a nurse was horrified.I will not bore you with the long tale of my mother's decline but the end result was that she died on 26th May. Her funeral was on the day that I had arranged to bring her back to Scotland to live nearer me. There are so many issues - lack of proper nursing care, poor hygeine,lack of proper monitoring etc. It is good that you have taken up the cudgel. The more fuss we make about this the better.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:02 pm

Thanks for your comments, this is certainly something which concerns me greatly at present, I will start by asking our local Council representatives to investigate further and apply deeper scrutiny.
I am sure that there all sorts of horror stories out there, but a lot of people just wish the bad memories to go away. So sorry to here of the terrible outcome in your case.

# posted by

Curly : 5:50 pm