Source: http://www.thespec.com/BreakingNews/article/435500
Out of control Part I: Why have hundreds died from superbug?
Why have hundreds died in Ontario hospitals after being infected with superbug?
September 15, 2008
Joan Walters
Hamilton spectator
For Ellen Walker, it was a six-month dive to a humiliating death.
Ninety years old, ashamed to be a burden, coping with the agony of explosive, toxic diarrhea up to 10 times a day, Walker told her family:
"I should just die."
She did -- in 2007 -- one of the oldest of 91 patients infected with a new, vicious strain of the superbug C. difficile to die at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in the worst Ontario outbreak on record.
The experiences of patients such as Ellen Walker, and the facts about a disease that has become a major public issue, are among the stories The Spectator is telling this week in a five-part series on C. difficile.
The Spectator series shows that:
* The premier and the health minister say there have been enough investigations on C. diff to inform everyone in Ontario about how to prevent and control the disease. Yet the Health Ministry has never even seen the extensive recommendations from infection experts provided to Jo Brant and the Sault Area Hospital, in northern Ontario, where one of the first major C. diff outbreaks occurred.
* Ontario has still not produced its long-promised hospital design guidelines, despite evidence that they're badly needed to help infection control.
* Health Minister David Caplan is about to announce 60 new infection prevention and control practitioner jobs in the next few weeks -- to make sure there are enough professionals on the ground as hospitals begin to reveal their C. diff rates.
It is expected that mandatory reporting of the superbug, which starts Sept. 26, will show higher-than-acceptable rates at some hospitals.
A new, epidemic version of the common hospital superbug is spreading fast around the world, and has tormented Ontario hospitals for at least two years. High death and infection rates have prompted questions about Ontario's capacity to control such a vicious disease.
A tally by The Spectator shows at least 460 patients infected with C. diff have died at just 22 of Ontario's 157 hospitals since 2006.
Yet the Ontario government has no plans to investigate what has happened provincewide.
Out of Control, running this week, fills in some of the gaps.
Today in Weekend Reader: How two elderly Jo Brant patients became classic victims of the bug.
MONDAY: An infection control system not up to scratch, despite promises after SARS that what was broken then would be fixed by now.
TUESDAY: What happened at Jo Brant -- and what didn't, but should have -- after patients started to die.
WEDNESDAY: Tracking the superbug, and what happens when its toxin-producing spores invade.
THURSDAY: The ick factor. New C. diff remedies include fecal transplants and maggot extract. Plus, how one doctor advocated for his mother, who died of the disease.
 I could use some help again...
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Ontario: Why have hundreds died from superbug?