Holistic review, approach needed to fight infections

The recent hepatitis C outbreak, which is possibly linked to four deaths so far at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and prompted the screening of nearly 1,000 patients and hospital employees for the virus, highlights the challenges of infection control procedures in hospitals (“Panel to review if there were gaps in SGH’s handling of outbreak”; Oct 10).

There needs to be a holistic assessment and review of the overall infection control measures for all restructured and private hospitals and nursing homes. Hepatitis C is just one infectious disease. There are other infectious diseases, including those caused by superbugs.

Recently, there was a superbug called Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase-producing bacteria (KPC) found to be spreading between patients at a hospital in Melbourne. Eighteen people who had the bacteria in them died. The measures introduced by the hospital included stepping up its infection control procedures with more screening of vulnerable patients, faster testing systems, steam-cleaning of rooms, hand hygiene education and isolation of people found to be carrying the bug.

In view of such infectious diseases, some areas that I think Singapore needs to look holistically at include reviewing and introducing stringent infection control procedures for high-risk infectious diseases, ensuring hospital employees are regularly trained on infection control measures and educating the public on basic hygiene procedures when they visit patients.

Healthcare workers also need to be trained regularly on the proper and safe use of equipment used to treat patients, while the use of big data analytics should be considered to track reports of infectious diseases.

This will proactively alert the hospital to trends and potential issues related to infections.

Without a holistic view and approach taken to tackle infectious diseases, I fear occurrences of such incidents will continue to happen.