Superbug outbreak lingers: Hospital official concerned about overcrowding. So why doesn't Ontario MOHLTC care?

With a C. Difficile outbreak dragging on since March at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital in BC, some concern is now beinng expressed about hospital overcrowding:

Infection control experts say they may need to cancel some non-emergency surgical procedures in order to get control of the ongoing outbreak of Clostridium difficile at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, though that option would be a last resort.....Overcrowding at the hospital continues to hamper housekeepers efforts to keep up with cleaning and it has put an additional strain on nursing staff, who have to follow meticulous protocol visiting patients....

NRGH continues to operate over capacity "almost all the time," Wale (the hospital's Executive Medical Director of Quality) explained. ....Overcapacity creates too many opportunities for the spread of infection. "We'll need to review whether we'll need to start turning down the routine operations to keep this under control," Wale said. "What we'd prefer to do is make the facility quiet enough to clean it properly, but we're trying to provide the full service still." (See Nanaimo Health Care Facility Considering New Options.)

Now if only we could spark some concern about hospital overcrowding in the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care -- before government imposed cuts drive bed occupancy even higher.

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