Ontario turns down C. difficile deaths probe
May 26, 2008
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By Keith Leslie
THE CANADIAN PRESS
There is no need for an independent investigation into the deaths of hundreds of patients in Ontario hospitals from C. difficile bacteria, Health Minister George Smitherman said today as the opposition parties claimed lives could have been saved if the government had acted faster.
The Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats insist a provincewide inquiry is needed into the deaths of 260 patients from C. difficile at seven Ontario hospitals, noting the Liberal government had plenty of warning after an outbreak in Quebec in 2003 claimed 2,000 lives.
“When hundreds of people have died in hospitals and we know it’s connected to C. difficile, we need to have an inquiry,” said NDP Leader Howard Hampton.
“The government was warned several times about this — we saw what happened in Quebec — but the McGuinty government failed to act, and now we see the deaths of more than 100 people.”
Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer agreed with Hampton that some deaths probably could have been prevented if the Liberal government had moved earlier to make it mandatory for hospitals to report outbreaks of C. difficile, a potentially deadly hospital-acquired infection.
“Certainly. They took steps in other provinces to make sure that mandatory reporting did take place, that there was a plan for outbreaks,” Witmer said. “The question remains: How many people have needlessly died because this government refused to take action?”
But Smitherman and Premier Dalton McGuinty both said today that a coroner’s inquest into a C. difficile outbreak in Sault Ste. Marie and other reports gave the government and health officials enough data on which to act, and that an inquiry is not needed.
Smitherman said everyone knows the problem is related to the spread of feces, and can best be combated by regular and thorough handwashing by hospital staff and visitors alike.
“We feel that we have a good body of evidence which directs everybody in health care on the methods forward to enhance the patient safety circumstances,” he said. “I think that an inquest or inquiry of some kind would be a delay in the kind of progress that’s possible to protect patients, so it’s not something that I’m intending to move forward on.”
Smitherman promised the government would make an announcement next month about making it mandatory for hospitals to report outbreaks of C. difficile, which will be later expanded to a host of other infectious diseases, but he didn’t say if the plan would be implemented before the end of the year.
“People should be prepared that over the course of the next year, a lot of information will be publicly reported by hospitals on matters which affect patient safety,” he said.
“Some of that information will be disconcerting and troubling, but the transparency in itself can be a very powerful force to effect even more change.”
Witmer was outraged today when Smitherman couldn’t tell the legislature exactly how many people have died from C. difficile in Ontario or which of the province’s 154 hospitals have had outbreaks.
“It’s unbelievable in this day and age that that minister could stand up there and not have that information,” she said.
The Opposition claims Ontario has a C. difficile “crisis” on its hands because the province failed to move sooner to make it mandatory to report outbreaks of the bacteria.
thestar.com