Hospitals across Ontario reported 319 cases of the sometimes deadly Clostridium difficile infection last month, but the first official report containing data generated by the hospitals themselves does not include the number of deaths from the bacterium.
The province's Health Ministry said the 319 patients in August worked out to a rate of 0.39 cases of C. difficile for every 1,000 patient days, lower than the rates reported in Quebec and the United Kingdom.
In Ottawa, four medical institutions reported cases of C. difficile in August:
- Ottawa Hospital: 17
- Queensway-Carleton: 5
- Montfort Hospital: 5
- Ottawa Heart Institute: 5
Kingston General Hospital also reported seven cases of C. difficile last month.
A recent Hamilton Spectator report showed that at least 460 patients infected with C. diff have died at just 22 of Ontario's 157 hospitals since 2006.
The province's new mandatory reporting requirements do not include deaths.
The ministry said many differences exist from hospital to hospital that could affect their case counts, including everything from the size of the facility and the complexity of services offered to the percentage of patients over age 65 and the number of people with respiratory infections.
Other jurisdictions use different criteria for counting the number of cases, and Ontario officials noted this was the first time hospitals had been required to report C. difficile cases, so it will take time to establish a trend.
Health Minister David Caplan announced Friday at the report's release that Ontario would create an infection control resource team of medical professionals that can be dispatched to any hospital with an outbreak.
Caplan also announced the hiring of 66 more infection control practitioners for hospitals and public health units.
Starting next month, Ontario hospitals will also be required to report on outbreaks and clusters of C. difficile cases. An outbreak is defined as six cases of C. difficile-associated disease in any single hospital unit, while a cluster is three cases in a week.
One virulent strain of C. difficile, called NAP-1, has killed more than 2,000 hospital patients in Quebec in the last several years.
By the end of this year, hospitals will also be required to post rates of two so-called superbugs -- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE).
Data on several other hospital-related infections will follow by the end of next April, as well as health-care centres' progress in improving hand-washing hygiene to prevent disease transmission by care providers between patients.
The Ontario Patient Safety Initiative website is available at www.ontario.ca/patientsafety.
