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Top e-government news, updated daily, and regular features from the top people in the public sector.
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| Maternity unit has 22 cases of MRSA in 30 months |
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More than 20 babies contracted MRSA at East Surrey Hospital's maternity unit in the space of two-and-a-half years.
Between January 2004 and June 2006, a total of 22 newborns were infected with the superbug after staying on the ward .
The statistics show the most recent rate of infections since maternity services were transferred from Crawley Hospital to East Surrey Hospital in 2001.
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust released the figures after a request by the News under the Freedom of Information Act.
The response from the Trust stated it did not record the outcome of MRSA cases but some details of infections on the maternity ward were given in its 2005/6 Infection Control Annual Report.
It details two instances where the superbug was contracted by multiple birth siblings being cared for on the Special Care Baby Unit this year.
The first - a set of twins - were found to be MRSA-positive in January. The second - two siblings in a set of triplets - were infected in early March.
As a result of the second case, all babies in the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) were screened and one other found to have the MRSA strain. This baby,a set of twins,was unaffected by the bug but its sibling later tested positive after it was discharged from hospital.
None of the children who contracted the bug this year became seriously ill, although one baby developed a conjunctivitis infection which was successfully treated.
The report states that because of the "unusualness of these findings" an investigation was launched which found the January and March cases unrelated as the babies had different strains of MRSA.
The document adds that at the time it was compiled - in June - no other cases of MRSA had been detected on the SCBU.
Separate figures released to the News under the Freedom of Information Act show how many cases of MRSA have been recorded across all Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust wards for the past five months.
In April, there were 28 cases,in May there were 27, in June there were 22, in July there were 25 and there were 38 cases in August.
A spokeswoman for Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust said: "Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has the second lowest rate of MRSA per 1,000 population in Surrey and Sussex and the rate is continuing to fall.
"As a trust we take infection control very seriously. We have a dedicated team of doctors and nurses in place working hard to prevent and manage all infections in our patients.
"We have set up an MRSA Working Group whose remit is to analyse the cases of MRSA bloodstream infection which has identified actions to further reduce the number of cases.
"MRSA does not always first occur in hospitals. The germ is often found in the community and can often follow the patient into the hospital." |
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