Doctors at Burnaby Hospital are ringing alarm bells after the deaths of 84 patients from C. difficile infections in the last two-and-a-half years.
Eight senior doctors at the hospital expressed their concerns about the disease in a letter to the Fraser Health Authority's CEO on Jan. 9. The physicians said that the hospital saw 173 serious cases of diarrhea caused by the bacteria from 2009 to mid-2011.
"We would characterize current CDAD [C. difficile associated diarrhea] infection control management at Burnaby Hospital, at best, as a serious hazard to the patient population ... and describe the coordination of this activity at both the local and regional levels, at best, as chaotic," the doctors wrote.
The numbers quoted in the letter do not include two outbreaks that have happened since the middle of last year, which prompted what the doctors described as "unprecedented" unit closures. They said that the rate of infection has stayed at between two and three times the national and provincial averages for the last two years.
"Such is the degree of the CDAD problem and the ineffectual response to it, that we believe it could objectively be considered medical negligence," the letter reads.
The doctors wrote that they believe the health authority has placed itself in danger of a lawsuit from patients and their families, and the only thing that has prevented legal action so far is a "lack of public transparency" about the problem.
"This raises a very disturbing ethical question to the extent that there has been full disclosure to affected patients and families, in that damages endured were not random or unpredictable events, but the consequence of a persistent lack of coordinated control over an extended period of time," the letter says.
The opposition NDP jumped on the issue during question period in the B.C. legislature on Wednesday, calling for a review of the situation by the BC Centre for Disease Control.
Health Minister Mike de Jong said that the government is gathering more information about the rate of infection.
"We need to work with the broad group of people who are responsible for administering care, and we have to ensure that the investments this government has initiated ... continue, so that old facilities can be upgraded that are better equipped to address the spread of disease like C. difficile," he said.
NDP leader Adrian Dix later told reporters that a decline in cleaning services at the hospital might be to blame.
"These are extraordinarily serious concerns expressed by the clinicians at the hospital," he said.
"I don't think there's any question that when you give less resources and less priority to cleaning in the hospital, it has an impact."
The Fraser Health Authority has written a letter in response to the doctors, saying that they're working on infection-control measures and asking for a meeting.
Dr. Andrew Webb, vice president of medicine for Fraser Health, told CTV News that the level of infection at the hospital can be attributed to a number of factors, including high numbers of elderly patients and overcrowding.
"You can't put your finger on one factor. If you could, we just could fix this," he said.
"One of the things that is unique with C. difficile is its ability to create a very hardy spore in the environment and that's very hard to eradicate, so we've changed our cleaning practices to include specific sporacidal cleaning agents."
Clostridium difficile is a highly contagious bug that infects the gastrointestinal tract and cause severe diarrhea in vulnerable patients.
