NHS hospital superbug outbreak kills 331

Telegraph ^ | 11 Oct 2007 | Rebecca Smith

[oblomov]

Appalling standards of care and a catalogue of failures contributed to the deaths of 331 patients in the worst outbreak of a hospital superbug ever recorded in the NHS, a report has found.

Crowded wards, a shortage of nurses and financial problems led to 1,176 people contracting Clostridium difficile over two and half years at three hospitals in Kent.

Though the superbug was rife on the wards, managers failed to act. Isolation units were not set up, nurses were so rushed they did not have time to wash their hands and patients were left in soiled beds.

Bedpans were not decontaminated properly and beds were not cleaned as well as they should have been.

The health watchdog, the Healthcare Commission, concluded that the infection probably or definitely killed at least 90 patients and was a factor in the deaths of a further 241.

Fourteen patients who died were found to have C.diff but it did not contribute to their deaths. In total 345 people died with the infection.

The report said some patients at the hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Hospital Trust should have made a full recovery from their initial illness. But they caught the bug and died. Police will determine if there are grounds for criminal charges.

[oblomov]

People dying of third-world style infections under socialized medicine. Imagine that.

[mewzilla]

Anyone who thinks socialized medicine is a good idea should be made to spend some time in a country that has it.

[TornadoAlley3]

Hillary Clostridium coming soon to US of A.

[doc1019]

Every time I read a story like this, I think of Hitlary and her potential presidency.

[CougarGA7]

That’s why Hillary wants socialized medicine. If we can kill Americans off in the hospitals then we dont have to pay as much in Social Security.

[oyez]

Does anyone want to bet that this story will a whole lot of media coverage in the USA?

[Moonman62]

Liberals will look at this as less people to cause global warming.

[milwguy]

Welcome to Hillary Care 2008

[hinckley buzzard]

C. dif has killed enough people right here in the USA.

[do the dhue]

[chaos_5]

It’s a bird!
It’s a plane!
No, its superbug!

Able to wipe out entire hospital populations in a single bound.
Faster than a speeding antibiotic.

What ever will the NHS do?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

People dying of third-world style infections under socialized medicine.

C. diff is a nasty bug but is not strictly a Third World problem. Lots of people are infected every year here in the USA.

[Thrownatbirth]

Welcome to Hillary Care 2008

"Bringing you 14th century pestilence with 21st century technology."

[ought-six]

HillaryCare.

[Stonewall Jackson]

About six years ago, a friend of mine who is a toxicologist at the Brown Cancer Center in Louisville, was over in England working with some colleagues on a possible cure for melanoma when the entire research staff was exposed to some sort of superbug. Five of them died and all of the others ended up spending months in intensive care.

My friend, Tracy, ended up spending twenty-six months in the hospital, fourteen of them in an quarantined ICU room. The spooky thing is, they never quite figured out what it was that infected them.

[mewzilla]

C. dif has killed enough people right here in the USA.

Yeah, we do, but if I read this right, I think the UK's got one mother of a problem...

[kittymyrib]

Michael Moore seems to have missed this gruesome testimonial to government health care.

[mewzilla]

This article discusses MRSA in the US....

Learn More About MRSA

[popdonnelly]

The wonders of socialism. The idiotic Michael Moore can’t figure this out - or doesn’t want to.

[Grizzled Bear]

The spooky thing is, they never quite figured out what it was that infected them.

---

Did they eat fish and chips off a truck? It’s damned tasty but can be quite risky!