Roy Heather: Inquiry into Hospital-Acquired Infection — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
Roy Heather: Inquiry into Hospital-Acquired Infection — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
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HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I want to take just a short call to reiterate a lot of what the previous speaker has said. Infection control in hospitals is an important issue and it can be a difficult one but a lot of hospital-acquired infection is very easy to combat with quite basic hygiene implementation. Hand-washing is extremely important but busy nurses and doctors travelling around wards and other health professionals too often just forget to wash their hands between seeing patients. 
I remember that when I was a physiotherapy student in Dunedin there was a very high infection rate. I think it was in the orthopaedic department. An investigation was launched and the reason became apparent quite quickly. An orthopaedic surgeon was very keen on having medical students in theatre so they could learn but the result of more people being in the theatre—people who perhaps had not gone through all the scrubbing up and routines that the surgeons and theatre staff had gone through—was that infection was introduced. The patients were the unwitting victims in that scenario. The hospital acted very quickly and put into the theatre an observatory with a perspex screen behind which the medical students stood. The infection rate quickly dropped again. 
It is a salient point to remember that infection is easily spread but it is also frequently easy to get the percentage the numbers back down. I too add a word of caution to what the Green Party member was saying about antibiotics. It is very important that antibiotics are not overprescribed but that comes back partly to the demands that patients frequently put on their doctors. Very few people like going to the doctor unless they leave with a prescription and frequently it is for an infection that will clear up on its own anyway. Patients often pressure doctors to prescribe something—usually an antibiotic. That practice has caused some problems with antibiotic resistance. People need to take some responsibility themselves for the pressure they put doctors under in terms of prescribing. 
Again on the issue of hospitals we need to be very cautious in where we apportion blame. It is important that that does not happen unfairly. One of things I was a little disappointed with in the select committee inquiry was that we were not able to get the figures for individual district health boards. It would have been good to see where they are at so that we have a measure a yardstick to follow up on so that when they are investigated next time we would know exactly where they stand. Some of the district health boards have now given that information willingly during our financial review process but some were very unwilling to do so. It would have been a good show of faith although I suspect some were very worried about the results that would have come out. 
The Green member commented in the select committee inquiry report that she was very worried about the high figures but I think the district health boards themselves have acted very quickly to contain the problems that have been documented. It is important also to remember that that very first inquiry was carried out I think in 2001 which is quite some time ago now. We were very satisfied that the district health boards that did seem to have reasonably significant problems had acted very quickly to contain them. I suspect that when the investigation is done again and reported back in November this year we will see a significant decline in the rate. It is very important to remember that people are not trying to spread infection maliciously but it is important that they take care. Like the previous speaker I agree that this was a worthy exercise and one that has yielded good results.