MRSA and C. Difficile rates fall (but not here)

A new report from the Chief Medical Officer of Health in England reports that "rates of C. difficile have fallen consistently in all English regions in recent years. MRSA has fallen markedly and is now very low in many areas."

As noted in November, there is no evidence of that in Ontario, as the incidence of both MRSA and C. Difficile is about the same as when public reporting started (i.e. over about the same period as when the rates of MRSA and C. Difficile were falling in England).

While England has made good progress on MRSA and C. Difficile, the new report also indicates an alarming increase in other types of bacteria including new strains of E coli and Klebsiella, which causes pneumonia. There are now many more cases of these than MRSA.

As many as 5,000 patients die each year in the UK of gram negative sepsis – where the bacterium gets into the bloodstream – and in half the cases the bacterium is resistant to drugs, the Guardian reports.

"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat," said Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer. "If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics." Davies adds "we will find ourselves in a health system not dissimilar to the early 19th century at some point" if adequate steps are not taken.

The US Centre for Disease Control recently issued a call to action after announcing that an increasingly resistant bacteria has found its way into 18% of U.S. long stay acute care hospitals. The bacteria, called Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), kill one in two patients who get bloodstream infections from them and are resistant to all, or nearly all, antibiotics. A resistant form of Klebsiella pneumoniae (which is one type of CRE) has showed a seven-fold increase in the last decade. Prevention techniques include strict hospital cleaning and hand hygiene practices.

Photo: Klebsiella by AJC1

Comments

More spending on new hospitals and new beds? Nope

Hospital funding: There is something off about the provincial government's Budget claims on hospital capital funding (funding to build and renovate hospital beds and facilities). For what it is worth (which is not that much, given the long time frame the government cites), the province claims it will increase hospital capital spending over the next 10 years from $11 billion to $20 billion – or on average to about $2 billion per year. But, this is just a notional increase from the previous announcement of future hospital capital spending. Moreover, even if we did take this as a serious promise and not just a wisp of smoke, the government's own reports shows they have actually funded hospital infrastructure about $3 billion a year over the 2011/12-2015/16 period. So this “increase” is really a decrease from past actual spending. Even last year's (2016-17) hospital capital funding increase was reported in this Budget at $2.3 billion - i.e. about ...

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