Chadwick Steve: Inquiry into Hospital-Acquired Infection — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Inquiry into Hospital-Acquired Infection — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:14657] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I rise to take a short call on the report of the Health Committee’s inquiry into hospital-acquired infection. I find it very interesting that we are debating this on a members’ day. This phenomenon of debating an inquiry report has not occurred in the 4 years I have been in the House. I think that is very healthy in itself because those who were on the select committee found this an interesting inquiry. 
It came about from an Audit Office report. The Audit Office work-stream identified some concerns with the reporting of hospital-acquired infection. It is not rest home - acquired infection; it is hospital-acquired infection. Many rest homes have some hospital beds but we have to be very careful to differentiate when we look at district health board reports to the Ministry of Health. 
In essence the committee found that this condition has been around ever since we have had hospitals. It is not a new phenomenon for people to acquire infection in hospitals. We do not want to panic the community of New Zealand but the select committee did agree that there needed to be national standards of infection reporting that need to be consistently applied and reported against. 
We were a little concerned that some of the district health boards despite our request did not give evidence to our inquiry. That was of concern to us. But we are really pleased to see in the recommendations in the Government report that the ministry is taking this seriously which means that the work of select committees is very valuable in terms of being an external audit of the goings-on in Government. We will look forward to the report back from the Ministry of Health in November of this year. I am sure the report will come to the select committee and will identify the most appropriate and cost-effective way of setting up a national data surveillance system. That is what we are asking for. 
We are very pleased with the monitoring initiatives of each district health board now. The select committee reports on each board its balanced scorecard and how it is performing and we want to see infection surveillance as part of that reporting. Another very good aspect of our recommendations is the move to post that information on the ministry’s website. But I think we must be very cautious. I say to the Green member that if he had been part of the committee he would realise that we do not want to raise community anxiety. We simply need to keep a report card on each district health board. It will be great when district health boards start reporting on rest homes as then we will have comprehensive data. 
But the issue goes back to the fundamentals of cross infection. The Green member was correct about the over-prescribing of antibiotics but the issue simply goes back to one of the fundamentals—basic hand-washing in hospitals. There is no great state-of-the-art combatant against hospital infections. Members must remember that when people go into hospital they are often carrying this infection with them. It is on our skin and in our gut. It is only when we are sick that the infection becomes so manifest. 
As chair of the select committee I am pleased that we did a very short inquiry. We did not hear a lot of submissions. The ministry came before us. We have heightened awareness on an issue that causes concern to New Zealanders and to those of us involved in health monitoring and the ministry is taking our response seriously. I will hold the Health Committee accountable for follow-up actions in our review of the Ministry of Health.