Dirty British hospital kills patient

A patient died during an outbreak of the Clostridium difficile bug that affected six at a Glasgow hospital, it emerged today. Nicola Sturgeon, the Health Secretary, said that the patient died on June 24 and confirmed that C.diff was a contributory factor. The death, at the Victoria Infirmary, comes after an outbreak of the same bug at the Vale of Leven Hospital in Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire, affected more than fifty people and killed nine.

Ms Sturgeon announced details of the death in response to a Scottish parliamentary question from Jackson Carlaw, the Conservative public health spokesman. She said that an outbreak control team was reviewing the circumstances and would prepare a full report. Ms Sturgeon also said that six patients at the infirmary had been affected by a C.diff outbreak in October last year. The cause of that outbreak could not be determined.

Mr Carlaw said: “This really is not acceptable. The Scottish NHS needs to usher in a new era of openness, and fast ... we need to know who is being held to account.”

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Australia: Disastrous NSW ambulance management

After a distinguished 30-year career, which included bringing Kerry Packer back to life, Bill Taylor quit the NSW Ambulance Service in 2006, fed up with an entrenched culture of bullying and discrimination. He personally knew five officers who committed suicide and one who attempted suicide, and he had the grim task of arranging funerals for others.

Last week, as a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the strife-torn service got under way, Mr Taylor said of his fallen colleagues: "They see no other way out because of the lack of support by the persons appointed by the service who are supposed to look after its members. "I used to organise the funerals for officers who died in Sydney either from suicide or accidents. [The Ambulance Service] would make a show of caring by paying for the funeral and getting the band to play but then it's swept under the carpet."

The upper house inquiry, chaired by Liberal MLC Robyn Parker, has received more than 100 submissions from officers alleging bullying and harassment within the service. Some, citing victimisation by colleagues, have linked their personal mistreatment to forced stress leave, resignations, clinical depression and, in several cases, suicide attempts of their own. Almost without exception, the officers insist their complaints, warnings or cries for help fell on deaf ears or were swept under the carpet by senior management. "The majority are about terrible bullying and harassment that has gone on for years and is driving people to do terrible things. Their psychological health is damaged. For some their whole lives are damaged," Ms Parker said.

The inquiry heard Christine Hodder, 38, endured years of torment at her station in Cowra before she hanged herself in 2005. Her former supervisor, Phil Roxburgh, has accused management of being "grossly negligent and dismissive" of her plight, while the service's professional standards unit found no one accountable for her death. The Sun-Herald has learned that the officer sent to Cowra to replace Ms Hodder also complained of being bullied after he revealed the two had been high school mates in the state's north. He left work on stress leave in August, 2006 and remains on leave. Chris Pollard, the senior Newcastle officer posted to Cowra as Mr Roxburgh's replacement in January, 2006, lasted several months before he too moved on, allegedly after being subjected to intimidation.

Mr Taylor - who used a defibrillator to revive Mr Packer after he suffered a heart attack at a polo match in 1990 - made a submission to the inquiry. He said he was bullied from his first day of training at a station, with the older officers telling him, "We don't like you. We're going to fail you." The final straw was the incompetence and bullying by a male officer at Tanilba Bay, which contributed to two officers taking stress leave. "I would take sickies so I didn't have to work with him and then I decided I had to retire," Mr Taylor said.

The Health Services Union has backed the claims, pointing to widespread disaffection with the Ambulance Service's internal investigations, many of which it says are "prejudicial in nature, inconsistent in application and protracted in duration". It has also called for a comprehensive plan to make sure all ambulance workplaces are free of persecution.

At an openly hostile statewide meeting last September, 500 officers had expressed "absolutely no confidence" in senior management "and in particular, the current chief executive", union chief Michael Williamson said. Testifying before the inquiry, NSW Ambulance Service chief executive Greg Rochford acknowledged there had been strong criticism of the service's ability to resolve disputes and address workplace behaviour issues. He said much was being done to simplify and speed up procedures and improve interaction between managers and front-line staff.

NSW Director-General of Health Deborah Picone said the service had a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and harassment. More than 400 managers were expected to be retrained in its implementation by the end of next year and a taskforce had been set up.

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