Link: icWestlothian - FAMILY’S ANGER AT ‘UNDIGNIFIED’ DEATH.
A GRIEVING pensioner slammed St John’s Hospital staff after his dead wife was left in bed for almost two hours surrounded by patients. Andrew Skedd said his wife had also contracted MRSA at the hospital — but he wasn’t told until after she died. He told the Courier this week: “Margaret was a beautiful woman and a very proud person, she did not deserve this.
Link: Irvine Times | News | MRSA bug ate my thigh.
AN Irvine man who contracted MRSA said he was left in agony for six weeks by doctors - wondering if his leg would have to be cut off. Robert Reid, 56, eventually had to have a large chunk of his thigh removed in an operation to stop the superbug. He said: “I’ve never felt pain like that in my life. It’s hard not to be bitter.” The Broomlands grandfather of four claimed he contracted MRSA during a straightforward absece operation at Crosshill Hospital. And he said a run of medical mistakes meant he had to go back four times over two years before the damaging disease was stopped. Only when most of his leg was ravaged with holes, he said, did doctors admit that his antibiotics weren’t working.
Link: The Herald : Politics: MAIN POLITICS.
The money will be spent on improving hygiene standards within wards, with a pilot scheme which will see patients entering hospital screened for the deadly MRSA bug part of the package of measures. The investment marks a three-fold increase in the amount which has been spent on tackling healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in the past three years and Ms Sturgeon said it sent out a message about how seriously the Scottish Government takes the issue. advertisement She said: "I know that patients and the public, rightly, expect the highest standards. Confirmation that we are massively increasing the amount of investment demonstrates the vital importance the Scottish Government places on tackling hospital infections.
Link: Channel 4 - News - �54m war on hospital infections.
A £54 million war against hospital infections, including superbugs, has been declared by health secretary Nicola Sturgeon. The three-year plan will see a pilot screening programme next year for the MRSA bug ahead of a national programme the following year. A Scottish laboratory for another superbug, Clostridium difficile, has set up at Glasgow's Stobhill Hospital. Health officials said this meant samples no longer have to be sent to the UK laboratory in Wales, reducing the time taken for particular strains of the bug to be identified. In other moves, trained staff will visit wards more frequently for "hand hygiene audits" to check how often staff wash their hands.
Link: Eight Children Infected By Resistant Bacteria In Glasgow Hospital.
Eight children have so far become infected by pseudomonas aeruginosa (potentially deadly bacteria) over the past eight weeks while at the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at a the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, Scotland. Doctors are still trying to find out where the strain came from. Three of the children had become infected a few weeks ago and are not in hospital any more. The unit will carry on admitting emergency patients, but has been closed to elective surgeries. According to the hospital, all the five children who are still in hospital are responding well to antibiotic medication - they expect two of them will be moved out of intensive care tomorrow.
Link: Scotsman.com
WORKERS at a Scottish hospital who performed a pantomime song about MRSA to the tune of the Village People's YMCA were condemned as "utterly disgraceful" after footage of the episode appeared on the video-sharing website YouTube. Costumed staff at Lorn and Islands District General Hospital in Oban were filmed singing the parody, which includes lines about washing hands after going to the toilet and using alcohol gels to ward off the superbug. It featured the chorus line: "It's fun to clean up the M-R-S-A". Advert for Bank of Scotland IASA The hospital was recently found to have the third highest rate of healthcare-associated infections in Scotland.
Link: BBC NEWS | Scotland | Surgical 'bug' figures detailed.
A total of 126 people, 7.6% of those who died after surgery, had MRSA. In 75 of those cases, it was thought to have contributed to the patient's death. The report pointed out that almost half of the patients with MRSA had the infection when they were admitted. There were 301,894 surgical admissions to Scottish hospitals in 2005, with 240,302 patients having an operation. In 17.8% of cases where the patient died after surgery, they had developed a hospital acquired infection (HAI).
Link: Scotsman.com News - Scotland - One in ten Scottish hospital patients 'suffering infection'.
Professor Hugh Pennington, Scotland's leading microbiologist, said more attention was also needed to ensure that only patients who needed antibiotics were receiving them to help tackle drug resistance. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish health secretary, yesterday pledged to step up efforts to combat HAIs in light of the latest figures, which give the most accurate picture yet of the issue. This includes the possibility of introducing an MRSA screening programme for those going into hospital. The new report, by Health Protection Scotland, suggested the rate of HAIs is higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK. A study by the Hospital Infection Society from February to May 2006 found that 8.2 per cent of patients in England had an HAI, 6.3 per cent in Wales and 5.4 per cent in Northern Ireland. Over the same three-month period, the rate in Scotland was 9 per cent. But experts said the differences in rates were most likely due to the more comprehensive nature of the Scottish survey, which covered every acute hospital and a sample of community hospitals.
Link: Scotsman.com
EDINBURGH Royal Infirmary is Scotland's flagship hospital, built at a cost of £183 million and with state-of-the-art facilities. But being the country's newest hospital does not make it immune to the problem of superbugs. Click to learn more... The results of the Health Protection Scotland survey published yesterday showed that on a single day, more than 11 per cent of patients treated at the infirmary had a healthcare associated infection (HAI). But the ERI has put much effort into combating HAIs. Every one of its 860 beds has alcohol hand-gels so that visitors and staff can clean their hands. The hospital also has special procedures in place to deal with patients having invasive treatments, such as drips. And a network of "cleanliness champions" also ensures cleaning standards remain high. Dr Alison McCallum, the director of public health at NHS Lothian, said part of the problem was that the ERI was treating some of the sickest and most vulnerable patients in south-east Scotland. "These include many of the people at the highest risk of catching HAIs and in many cases they will already have contracted them in the community, or elsewhere, before they reach us," she said.
Link: The Daily Record - NEWS - News Feed - SCOTLANDS KILLER HOSPITALS.
ALMOST one in 10 patients picks up infections in Scots hospitals. The figure is higher than anywhere else in the UK. In one Glasgow hospital, the rate is almost one in five. A report yesterday showed the infections kill more than 500 patients a year and cost the NHS £183million. Unions blamed dirty wards, claiming hospitals are grubbier now than they were 30 years ago. Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon pledged to take action. She said: "It is simply not good enough."
A short introduction from Dave Roberts
This 12 minute introduction will help you grasp the key facts and the key issues surrounding drug resistant staph aureus (mersa, mursa)
