One extra cleaner per ward means fewer patients with MRSA and cash savings for hospitals

A recent British academic study found that lives and millions of pounds would be saved if hospitals took on just one extra cleaner per ward.

The study, sponsored by the public sector union UNISON, found that an extra cleaner had a measurable effect on the clinical environment, cutting the number of patients who contracted MRSA and saving an estimated £30,000 to £70,000 per hospital (that's about $48,000 to $112,000 at current exchange rates).

Microbiologist Dr Stephanie Dancer carried out in-depth research into MRSA and cleaning at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow.

The findings revealed that enhanced cleaning led to a 32.5% reduction in microbial contamination at hand-touch sites, while cases of MRSA fell in the six months of targeted cleaning on one of the wards. They rose again when the extra cleaner moved to another ward, which in turn saw the number of cases fall. Dr. Dancer’s study was published in BMC Medicine.

The Ontario government might want to look into this, rather than continue their policy of cutting hospital support staff. Given that in Ontario, C. Difficile is also skipping through our hospitals, the improvements might even be more significant.

The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, can be found here, and the UNISON release, here.

dallan@cupe.ca

Comments

Too many public sector workers in Ontario?

Opponents of public services often try to portray the public sector as having grown disproportionately. In fact, since 1976, the number of public sector employees has not quite kept pace with the population. In 1976, the number of public sector employees in Ontario as reported by Statistics Canada averaged 830,800. By 2012, the number had increased to 1,330,700 -- a 60.2% increase. That sounds like significant growth -- true. But the population has increased from 8,413,779 in 1976 to 13,505,900 in 2012, a 60.5% increase. In other words, population growth has run slightly ahead of the growth in public sector employment. In 1976, close to 10% of the population worked in the public sector. It stayed pretty much this way until the Mike Harris government came to power when it dipped below 9%. It returned close to the historical range in the last six years or so, declining in 2012 to below the 1976 averag...

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data. This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization. Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion. That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year. The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million. In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staﬃng. Less and less of hospital spending is on staff. Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development. It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staﬀ per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staﬃng capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...

Defend Public Healthcare

Search This Blog