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MRSA watch ends at BGH

Aug. 5: The QHC Infection Control Team has declared the MRSA outbreak over on the Sills 4 Complex Continuing Care unit at QHC Belleville General Hospital. The outbreak has been in effect since July 12 and in total affected less than five patients.
“Thank you to all of our staff and physicians who worked together to implement strict infection control precautions that controlled the spread of MRSA,” said Dr. Michael de la Roche, QHC Chief of Infection Control. “We also appreciate the cooperation and support of our patients and families during this time.”

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The MRSA outbreak on the Sills 4 Complex Continuing Care unit at QHC Belleville General Hospital is still in effect after one additional patient tested positive for the bacteria earlier this week. The outbreak has effected less than five patients since it started on July 12.

“We continue to have patients on this unit who are colonized with MRSA, but are not sick with it,” said Dr. Michael de la Roche, Chief of Infection Control. “Being colonized with MRSA can make it more difficult to treat an infection because it is resistant to some of the antibiotics we typically use.”

QHC also continues to have patients with clostridium difficile throughout the hospital. “Although we typically expect to have patients with c. difficile from time-to-time, as every hospital does, we are seeing an increase in the number of cases over the last two months, both in the QHC hospitals as well as patients coming in having acquired it in the community,” said Dr. de la Roche.

In response, QHC continues to have enhanced infection control measures in place. For example, housekeeping staff did an intensive clean of the entire Sills 4 unit that took the team 18 hours to complete. There are also increased hand hygiene audits and education of staff and physicians, providing educational materials to patients and visitors and a Security Officer on the Complex Continuing Care unit is reminding people to wash their hands when coming onto and leaving the unit.

Visitors are asked to keep themselves and their loved ones safe by cleaning their hands often and wearing a protective gown and gloves. “We also continue to stress to everyone in the community that if you are sick yourself, you should not be coming to the hospital to visit someone,” said Dr. de la Roche.

The additional precautions will be kept in place until the MRSA outbreak can be declared over and we see a significant decrease in the incidence of c-difficile throughout the corporation, which will be in at least two weeks if there are no new patients testing positive for either bacteria.

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