Hospital bug deaths a "tragedy and scandal" (Sharon Bowles MEP)

Sharon Bowles MEP <info@sharonbowles.org.uk>

Hospital bug deaths a "tragedy and scandal"

October 12, 2007 12:00 AM

Better cleaning and disinfection procedures are urgently required in our hospitals

Kent MEP Sharon Bowles has today described the deaths of 90 of the county's hospital patients from the bug clostridium difficile as a "tragedy and a scandal that was entirely avoidable".

Responding to the publication of a Healthcare Commission report that catalogues a number of errors by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in controlling hospital infections, leading to the death of patients, Sharon Bowles said, "Proper patient care is clearly being sacrificed in the name of chasing top-down targets from the Government. Ministers are hindering the efforts of local hospitals to tackle superbugs, with literally fatal consequences."

England currently has one of the worst rates of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) in Europe. Many cases are due to inadequate cleaning of hospital wards and bacteria that have become increasingly difficult to treat because they have evolved a resistance to existing antibiotics. Perhaps the most well known HAI is MRSA, which contributed to 955 deaths in the UK in 2003.

Sharon Bowles added, "Kent's hospitals need to adopt a zero tolerance approach in all places at risk of infection. We need to learn from countries like the Netherlands who already operate a 'search and destroy' policy towards bacteria in hospitals with more rigorous testing, isolation and disinfection procedures."