Super Bug outbreak infects 17 in Que. hospital
Pastor Dale Morgan
Super Bug outbreak infects 17 in Que. hospital*
Nov. 27 2006 11:52 PM ET
CTV News Staff
A Quebec hospital is restricting visitors and security guards are
enforcing handwashing at its entrances in an effort to contain an
outbreak of the superbug C. difficile.
Seventeen patients at the Lanaudiere regional hospital in in Joliette,
Que., have been infected with the superbug over the last 12 days. Four
people died at the same hospital from Clostridium difficile last April.
Most victims are already vulnerable when the bug attacks them, hospital
dierctor Caroline Barbir told CTV News.
"These people are frail, elderly for the most part, have multiple
illnesses, get put on antibiotics," she said. "And antibiotics are a
contributing factor in a person developing an active C. difficile
infection."
Teams are cleaning and disinfecting the hospital 24 hours day in an
effort to prevent new infections, Barbir said. The patients have been
quarantined, but the hospital is not in quarantine, she stressed.
Surgeries will proceed as scheduled. The hospital's clinic will be open
Monday.
But a security guard has been posted at every entrance to demand
visitors and staff wash their hands as they enter the hospital.
"We're asking the public to respect these measures" to limit the
possibility of spreading the infection throughout the hospital, said Barbir.
Administrators say that the hospital's emergency room has been receiving
three times as many patients as it is equipped to handle, and are
looking at overcrowding as a culprit in the outbreak.
The superbug killed 11 people at a hospital in St-Hyacinthe, Que., this
fall. A hospital in Drummondville, Que., also reported three deaths last
week.
There were more than 7,000 cases of C. difficile during an epidemic in
Quebec three years ago.
The number of cases has dropped 60 per cent since reaching a peak in
2004, but the latest outbreaks are making patients and visitors nervous.
"I was in the hospital not too long ago ... I was there for a week and
it does bother me," a former patient told CTV News outside the hospital.
"When you are there, you see it more," she said.
With a report from CTV Montreal's Annie Demelt