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Wednesday, June 08, 2005A flagship London heart hospital was forced to close for two weeks after 45 staff and patients became ill with a diarrhoea bug. Operations had to be postponed and emergency patients were diverted to other units after managers shut the Heart Hospital in central London to new admissions. The cause of the outbreak is being investigated but is thought to be a virus which causes sudden diarrhoea and vomiting. Hospital infections have remained high on the political agenda after 12 people died from a bug at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. Stoke Mandeville, it turns out, did not make cleanliness a priority. In fact, it appears to have been far down on its list: The public service union Unison fuelled those fears when it warned yesterday that hospital cleaners were being told to clean as many as four wards in an hour by private companies eager to cut costs and raise profits. Chronic shortages of cleaners and a high turnover of poorly paid staff were adding to the problem of hospital infections, a report by the union said. The number of full-time cleaning staff has fallen by 45 per cent in the 20 years since services were "contracted out" of the NHS to private companies. In 1986, there were 67,000 full time cleaners in the health service - now there are just 36,000, the report found. Paying cleaners more doesn't necessarily mean they'll clean better, but making them clean faster does mean they'll clean less thoroughly. posted by Sydney on 6/08/2005 08:17:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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