<
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-11/patients-catching-covid-hospitals-australia-infection-control/103442806>
'Steve Irons' older brother Jim was only supposed to be in hospital for a short
while. A retired stockman from Maryborough, Queensland, Jim was diagnosed with
leukaemia just before Christmas in 2022. He was flown to Brisbane for testing,
then back to Maryborough Hospital, where doctors were putting together a plan
for him to be treated at home.
But a patient in the room next door to Jim's had COVID, Steve says, and on
January 14 last year, Jim tested positive too. "After four days, when the
hospital told me he was no longer infectious, I took the risk and decided to
visit him," says Steve, who'd flown up from Tasmania. "I sat with him for three
days, playing country music, reading to him."
And then, on Saturday January 21, Jim Irons died of COVID-19 pneumonia and
acute myeloid leukaemia, aged 79. It still distresses Steve to know his brother
would have lived longer had he not caught a dangerous virus in a place he
should have been safe. Once Jim had COVID, he says, hospital staff kept his
door closed and donned masks and gowns when they came into his room. But
hindsight is 20/20. "For me, to put him next door to a COVID patient caused his
death," Steve says. "It didn't have to happen that way. If they'd had a
separate COVID ward … with formal routes of entry, cleaning, controlled
ventilation, Jim could still be with us now."
Twelve months later Australian hospitals have become a strange new battleground
in the fight against COVID, with doctors and public health experts concerned
that too many patients are catching the virus — and an alarming number are
dying — as a result of inadequate infection control. Until recently, tools like
contact tracing, testing, N95 respirators and good ventilation were mainstays
of COVID management in healthcare settings. But in many hospitals they've been
wound back or ditched in tandem with other community protections, putting
patients and healthcare workers at risk and deterring others from seeking
treatment.
Health departments insist the risk of catching COVID cannot be eliminated
completely, and that hospitals maintain stringent measures to prevent
infections and manage outbreaks. But senior healthcare workers in several
states say vulnerable people — including transplant and oncology patients and
others with compromised immune systems — are contracting COVID because even
basic precautions are not being taken: a consequence, they say, of hospitals'
failure to address airborne transmission, and the pervasive myth that COVID is
"just a cold".'
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: February 15, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-98518046
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
