According to a daylong survey conducted last year, the national referral hospital recorded the highest Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAIs) with more than 30 patients. Some 370 patients were surveyed in 15 district hospitals.
Officials attribute this to the highest bed strength and multispecialty facility at the national referral hospital.
HAIs are infections acquired during hospital care after 48 hours of admission. The common type of infections was found to be surgical site infection followed by clinical sepsis, ventilator-associated pneumonia and Hospital-acquired pneumonia and bloodstream infection.
“In the case of Hospital-acquired infections, there are comorbidity factors that affect the people who have an impaired immune system for example like old age and newborns. And then the outbreak that happened last year in the national referral hospitals with 11 neonatal deaths. Actually all these children were preterm, underweight and they were very sick. So these are some of the comorbidity factors,” said Pem Zam, the Programme Analyst of Infection Control/Waste Management Program, MoH.
According to the World Health Organisation, in Low and Middle-income countries on an average 15 per cent of patients suffer from at least one healthcare-acquired infection at any given time with mortality estimate at 10 per cent. Despite all odds ministry hopes to curb such infections.
“Especially in this programme, we lack expertise. Like in the ministry I am all alone who is looking after this infection control program. And then in the district hospitals, we do have a focal person but they are not dedicated. Their primary responsibility is patient care and the infection control focal becomes a secondary responsibility for them. These are some challenges and other thing is that even if we have a focal person they are not certified,” Pem Zam added.
The immediate way forward the ministry is undergoing is to educate and sensitise health professionals on infection control and waste management. Hand Hygiene, Standards Precaution, Decontamination and Environment cleaning among others are expected to keep the infections at bay.
Namgay Wangchuk
