Pat's Note: The dedication that the Hamilton Spectator shows in
reporting the situation in Ontario is to be admired.

As professional journalists they know this story is one of the most
important for many years. It can't be easy.

They expect developments. They are right.

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/409000

Hospitals to sign off on C. diff rules

July 25, 2008 
Joan Walters

The Hamilton Spectator
(Jul 25, 2008) 
Ontario's new C. difficile reporting system asks hospital CEOs and
board chairs to sign a document confirming they have reviewed and
understood new rules for tracking the superbug and making the rates
public.

Hospitals are wading through massive packages sent out this week on
how in-house surveillance and public disclosure of C. diff rates will
work when government-imposed reporting begins Sept. 30.

Dr. Michael Baker, in charge of getting the system up and running,
says the health ministry wants each hospital's most senior officials
to acknowledge the material.

The CEO and board chair are also to sign off on a promise to "make
every effort for their staff to attend training sessions," Baker says.

The requirement is meant to underscore that it is each hospital's
responsibility - not the Ontario government's - to monitor and contain
the potentially lethal bacterium.

For months, the government has taken fire for what critics claim was
an irresponsibly lax response to a new strain of C. diff, which killed
2,000 people in Quebec before moving into Ontario in 2006.

The Liberals have said it was not the government's job to deal with
the infection's growing threat.

Premier Dalton McGuinty and former health minister George Smitherman
spent much of the spring legislature session pointing out that
hospitals had a legal responsibility to clamp down on the bacterium,
and plenty of information on the superbug was available.

But Don Scott, CEO of Joseph Brant Memorial in Burlington, has said he
was not aware an epidemic version of C. diff was ravaging other
Ontario institutions until well after his hospital was involved in a
major outbreak. He said he doesn't recall C. diff alerts, such as a
letter to CEOs from the Ontario Hospital Association or provincial
bulletins.

The hard-to-control infection swept through Jo Brant in 2006 and 2007
and proved to be four times deadlier than originally thought.

A spokesperson for the Burlington hospital said Scott participated in
a CEO teleconference arranged by Baker's group and has received the
package sent this week.

"He is reading, reviewing and will sign off on or before the required
deadline of Aug. 15," said Helaine Ortmann.

Baker, appointed as point man on C. diff this spring amid opposition
calls for an inquiry into the deaths, says the new system will
determine for the first time exactly how prevalent the superbug is.

Monthly C. diff infection rates will be sent to the ministry and
posted on a government website and by each hospital on its website.

The group has in place uniform definitions of an outbreak and a case
of C. diff and other protocols.

Dr. Michael Gardam, the infection specialist called in by Jo Brant
last year, and an adviser to Baker, says what should happen quickly is
identification of hospitals where a problem clearly exists.

"Infectious diseases in hospitals have traditionally been seen as a
cost of doing business," Gardam said. "It's only relatively recently
that people have started thinking that we can actually prevent those
things from happening."

Monitoring rates will give the ministry, health officials, the public
and hospitals a clear picture of institutions not up to scratch.

The question of whether to track the number of deaths from the disease
as part of public reporting has bedeviled the group working on the
system, Baker says.

Time-consuming chart reviews to try to establish whether C. diff
caused or contributed to a death are too imprecise, he said. But if a
better formula for death decisions is ever available, he would endorse
it.

A Spectator tally shows 463 patients infected with C. diff died at 22
Ontario hospitals since January 2006, 91 of them at Jo Brant alone.

-- 
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com