Ward Shut After Bug Hits Second Hospital
A second hospital in less than a week has closed a ward following an outbreak of a potentially deadly bacteria. Five patients in the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, are receiving treatment for clostridium difficile, a stomach bacteria which can infect the gut.
Infection control measures have been put in place and no patients are being admitted to the ward, which cares for elderly patients recovering from surgery.
The latest outbreak takes the total number of patients affected in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board area to 12 in a week. Health board officials said none of the patients is giving cause for concern.
Elderly patients are more at risk from the infection which was responsible for the death of 934 people across the UK in 2003.
Last week seven patients at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow were found to be infected with the same bacteria.
Hospital managers isolated the patients and closed the ward to admissions after the bacteria was discovered in ward G4.
Despite the bacteria being potentially deadly, health officials yesterday said patients and the public should not be concerned.
The bacteria causes diarrhoea, inflammation and high temperature leaving elderly people at risk.
Dr Vevanne Biggs, infection control consultant, said: “Clostridium difficile is a common bacteria that can sometimes cause an infection of the gut.
“Patients who are ill or elderly and who have recently taken antibiotics are more susceptible to the C diff bacteria which can complicate their original illness.
“The hospital’s infection control team has put in place strict infection control measures and is working closely with ward staff to monitor the situation.”
The outbreak at the Western Infirmary was the second at the hospital in six months. In October last year heart operations were suspended for 24 hours after an outbreak.
Last month hospitals were warned they faced a record number of clostridium difficile cases. Health Protection Scotland said with new and more aggressive strains of the bacteria developing cases would reach an all time high.
The bacteria kills as many as MRSA and it is feared that people suffering from clostridium difficile will exceed those with MRSA in the near future.
In the 1990s the number of cases across the UK was fewer than 1000 a year, which had risen to more than 43,000 by 2004.
In 2002, clostridium difficile caused the death of 81-year-old Margaret Kerr at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock.
Professor Hugh Pennington the leading microbiologist, based in Aberdeen, said clostridium difficile and related diseases were a lethal and growing threat to patients, more so than MRSA.
