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Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard will give hospitals another $20 million to hire more staff to fight Clostridium difficile, but he did not reveal how many died from the infection last year.
The Quebec government, which has monitored the number of cases in 88 hospitals since August, announced Jan. 27 that there were 1406 cases between August and November.
However, their figures do not include all Quebec hospitals, the overall death rates or a year-to-year comparison of infection rates. Nor does the information distinguish between a virulent strain of C. difficile that is associated with a high mortality rate at some Quebec hospitals, and the more common strain.
Quebec hospitals have been experiencing what several infection control experts have labelled an “epidemic” of C. difficile during the last 2 years.
Dr. Mark Miller, the head of infectious disease control at the Jewish General Hospital in Montréal complained in November that the surveillance program would be a failure due to a lack of funding and incomplete data.
The new figures did reveal that hospitals with more than 250 beds had an infection rate twice that of smaller hospitals, and almost half the province's cases occurred in Montréal.
Couillard called the figures a “first snapshot” of C. difficile in Quebec. “Everywhere where we had a very high rate of infection, the rates have decreased significantly,” he said at a news conference. “But I don't want to say that the problem is solved at all.”
At the McGill University Health Centre, cases of C. difficile dropped from 251s (mid-August to mid-January 2003–04) to 167 (2004–05).
“We are encouraged by this,” says Ann Lynch, MUHC director of clinical operations.
The additional $20 million announced by the Ministry will be dispersed on the basis on infection rates and will allow hospitals to buy additional equipment and hire infection control staff.