Saturday, February 09, 2008

By Ian Graham
The Belfast Telegraph

Hospital bug Clostridium difficile was involved in at least 77 deaths of
people in Northern Ireland last year, official figures have revealed.

The total represented a rise of more than 20% on the previous year.

Michael McGimpsey, the Northern Ireland Health Minister, admitted that
despite a range of counter measures C. diff and MRSA would never be
eradicated from hospitals.

He released the figures after asking the General Registrars Office to
carry out an urgent study to determine the number of cases where C. diff
was mentioned on a death certificate in 2007.

The review was launched after one trust - the Northern - admitted it was
suffering from an outbreak of C. diff and that 24 people had died since
July.

The minister yesterday pledged to take every action to drive down the
spread of infections in hospitals.

He recently announced a £9m investment and range of measures including
unannounced hygiene inspections at hospitals.

The minister said: "I fully acknowledge that the current outbreak of the
virulent 027 strain of C. diff in the Northern Trust is of great concern
to the public. It is clear that we can never fully eradicate infections
such as MRSA and C. diff."

He said in the case of C. diff, around 30% of elderly people and 3% of
healthy young adults carried the bug.

But by following robust and stringent infection control measures it was
possible to reduce the rates of infection, he said.

"That is why I have set the challenging target of a reduction in C. diff
by 20% by March 2009."

Everyone, he said, had their part to play and it was by simple measures
such as washing hands, reporting incidents of poor hygiene practice and
obeying hospital visiting policies that a real difference could be made.

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