Bacterial outbreak in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Toronto's Women's College Hospital, Ontari

[Ian David]

GLIDE Number: EP-20070309-10265-CAN
Date / time: 09/03/2007 13:49:41
Event: Epidemic Hazard
Area: North-America
Country: Canada
State/County: Province of Ontario
City: Toronto
Number of Deads: None or unknow
Number of Injured: None or unknow
Damage level: Minor

Description:

A serious bacterial outbreak has forced an emergency closure of the neonatal intensive care ward at Toronto's Women's College Hospital, posing a potential problem for other hospitals. The hospital will no longer take high risk pregnant mothers or transfers of premature babies born at other regional hospitals.

Those cases might have to be cared for outside of Toronto, out of the province or even across the U.S. border in Buffalo, N.Y. Women's College has Toronto's largest neonatal intensive care unit, and health officials say there's no extra space in the rest of Ontario, as the system is already operating at full capacity at all times.

Officials are not saying what kind of infection caused the shutdown, which could last weeks. The outbreak first surfaced in January but could not be contained.

Infants developed abscesses, pneumonia, and infections of the eye and blood are being monitored at the hospital. No deaths have been reported.

Women's College Hospital's neonatal unit has 41 beds in about 30 square feet of space, making for extremely crowded conditions that likely helped the infection spread easily, the hospital said.

More:
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?lang=eng&id=10265

[kestrel91316]

1. Nosocomial infections have been with us as long as there have BEEN

hospitals. Not sure why someone feels the need to stir up nationwide panic over this as a security threat..........

All TERRA, all the time...........

:shrug: