Hospitals urged to do cleaning daily

HEALTH and HIV/AIDS Minister Elias Kapavore has called on all hospitals and health facilities around the country to do general cleaning daily to ensure that infection control is done regularly.
Kapavore made this statement after receiving a report from the team led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to the inspect an alleged outbreak of Klebsiella infection that had allegedly killed more than 30 people at Goroka Hospital.
The team was tasked to verify, identify and come up with a hospital response plan.
However, upon arrival the team found that there was no outbreak and that there were only 14 cases of klebsiella infection and out of the 14 seven neonatal deaths occurred.
The report also found that special care nursery, labour and pediatric wards were all infected with the klebsiella infection due to the “unclean and unhygienic” state of the hospital and also because there was no regular infection control done.
The report also stated that the hospital did not have a steady supply of water and that its special care nursery was too small and over-crowded, making it easier for the infection to be passed on.
The team recommend that the hospital make a regular infections control, ensure that the hospital was cleaned daily, recommended for the nursery to be extended and ablution blocks to be removed from near the wards and built outside.
Kapavore said infections control was part of the clinical governance requirement and also part of National Health Standards.
“There must be an infections control officer and committee that must meet regularly to ensure that hospitals are clean and hygienic,” he said.
“The Goroka Hospital has no excuse because it is seen as a regional hospital, its Eastern Highlands health authority receives a budget of K40 million annually.”