Hospitals need cleanliness

Infections and errors due to understaffing: authors.

by Beatrice Fantoni for the Windsor Star

The problem of hospital-acquired infections and medical error is much worse than governments would have us believe, the authors of a new book say, and the cuts to Ontario's health care spending will exacerbate the problem.

"You will see a hospital system which is driven to downsize further," said Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, which contributed a chapter to the book. "We can sort of guess what the consequences will be."

The book, titled Epidemic of Medical Errors and Hospital-Acquired Infections, looks at issues such as cleaning, staffing levels and shift scheduling and how these contribute to medical error and the spread of bugs such as C difficile — which can be fatal in weak patients — in Canadian and US hospitals…

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