Britain's MRSA clear-up target is shelved

A target to cut the number of MRSA infections in hospitals appears to have been shelved in advance of a failure to achieve it. The three-year target to halve rates of MRSA by next April is widely regarded to be unachievable, given the slow progress made in fighting the superbug. The deadline has been postponed for three years to 2010-11, the period covered by the latest Comprehensive Spending Review agreement with the Treasury. The Government has also set a new target to reduce rates of Clostridium Difficile by 30 per cent by 2011.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced the measures last month, but they received no further publicity. The Department of Health insisted that the original MRSA target could be met by April. However, Health Protection Agency figures show that cases of bloodstream MRSA fell by only 10 per cent to 6,381 in the last financial year.

Source






Australia: THE WONDERS OF GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE AGAIN

Two current reports below

Lazy and indifferent public hospital staff (1)

QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh is demanding to know how a woman was left to give birth in a hospital car park north-west of Brisbane. Jennifer Gold said nurses watched as she gave birth to her son Sonny last Friday morning in a car parked outside the Miles Hospital on the Darling Downs. Ms Gold said that instead of being admitted, she and her partner were left outside. "Malcolm ran inside and pressed the buzzer to try and get some help and one of the staff has said we weren't allowed to go in there because they weren't a midwife," Ms Gold told Network Ten news.

"Malcolm finally came out, they gave him a towel and he delivered the baby himself," she said. "I just watched and it was very scary. "I don't know whether he (Sonny) was going to be alive." Photographs taken by her partner showed Sonny was born in the footwell of the family's four-wheel drive and that the boy was blue. He and his mother were finally allowed inside the hospital but left later the same day because Ms Gold said she felt unwanted.

She took her child home and an ambulance later took both mother and baby to Toowoomba Hospital, 200km away, where the child has since been in intensive care. "I think in another day he would have been gone because he got so dehydrated from the stress and the trauma," Ms Gold said.

An angry Ms Bligh said the matter would be investigated thoroughly. "This issue will be the subject of a very thorough investigation, I can assure the people involved," Ms Bligh said. "We take these sorts of issues very seriously." The child was expected to be able leave hospital within the next few days.

Source

Lazy and indifferent public hospital staff (2)

HEALTH authorities have been accused of not properly checking the credentials of two Pakistani-trained doctors who failed to save a woman's life. Coroner Michael Barnes yesterday handed down the findings of his inquest into the death of Deborah Burgen, a 49-year-old mother at the Mount Isa Hospital on February 28, 2005.

Ms Burgen was operated on for a twisted bowel but died of complications as she was pumped with fluids two days later. The inquest, which opened earlier this year, followed a long-running public inquiry into the "Dr Death" scandal surrounding Indian trained Dr Jayant Patel. Dr Patel has been linked to the deaths of 17 patients at Bundaberg Base Hospital where he was director of surgery until he fled to the United States in April 2005.

Mr Barnes said in his report that had Ms Burgen been operated on before the obstruction caused her large intestine to perforate "her chances of surviving the procedure were quite good". "Ms Burgen should not have died," Mr Barnes said. The inquest had been told that when she was admitted to hospital on February 25, 2005, Ms Burgen was in the care of general surgeon Frederick Rowland, who was a consultant specialist with the British Royal Navy and had worked in Saudi Arabia and Fiji.

Mr Barnes' report found that Queensland Health did not adequately scrutinise the qualifications and experience of Pakistan-trained Dr Naseem Ashraf and Dr Anilkumar Tirumalai. All three doctors have since left the hospital.

The inquest heard that Ms Burgen died in excruciating pain after her weight ballooned 31kg in two-and-a-half days after her admission to the hospital. "Mt Isa Base Hospital (MIBH) clinical managers failed to provide Dr Ashraf and Dr Tirumalai with any orientation in relation to the policies and procedures at the Mt Isa Base Hospital and failed to have their scope of practice delineated by a credentialing and privileging committee in a timely fashion," Mr Barnes said. "None of the doctors who saw Ms Burgen on the six occasions that she attended the MIBH Emergency Department between February 16 and 25 adequately responded to her complaint. "By failing to operate on Ms Burgen for two days after her emergency admission, Dr Rowland allowed her large intestine to perforate."

Mr Barnes said the inquest had been told Dr Ashraf was apparently the Director of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care but neither he nor Dr Tirumalai had post-graduate training in anaesthesia that would be recognised in Australia. "The Medical Board of Queensland did not adequately scrutinise the suitability of Dr Ashraf and Dr Tirumalai before registering them to practice."

Mr Barnes said there was no basis to suspect that doctors trained in countries other than Australia were any less competent than those trained here. "However, the Medical Practitioners Registration Act 2001 also creates another pathway for registration for those seeking to practice in a geographic region that the minister for health has decided is an area of need. "This assessment is made on the basis that there are insufficient medical practitioners practising in that area to meet the needs of the people living there. "Prior to Ms Burgen's death, Mt Isa had been stipulated to be such an area and Drs Rowland, Ashraf and Tirumalai were registered under the area of need regime.

"Because such registration is not dependent upon the doctor meeting the Australian Medical Council standards it is essential that the employer, in this case Queensland Health, and the Medical Board ensure that the proposed registrant has appropriate qualifications and experience for the position under consideration."

Source Further details here.