SGH Hepatitis C cluster: Police rule out foul play
SINGAPORE: The police have ruled out foul play after Singapore General Hospital (SGH) reported a Hepatitis C cluster at its renal ward.
“Pursuant to the police report lodged by the Singapore General Hospital on Oct 20, 2015, in relation to the Hepatitis C cluster, police investigations have not revealed evidence to suggest any foul play,” said the police in a statement on Tuesday (Dec 8).
“The Police have submitted their findings to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for review. The findings have also been shared with the Independent Review Committee (IRC) appointed by the Ministry of Health.”
In October, SGH announced that 25 patients in its renal ward had contracted the virus, and subsequently lodged a police report. The hospital has screened hundreds of patients and staff, following the discovery of the cluster.
- CNA/xq
The actual cause has not been identified. The Committee found out there is lack of infection control and the experts are saying there are enough controls in the hospital except that there is lack of culture instil in the staff to carry out the control. Are these really the root cause?
May be we should examine the problem from the other angle. What are the other things that can cause "lack of control or lack of culture". Is there lack of morale among the staff? Are they over worked? Are they being treated fairly? Are the management treating them well?
Understand working in SGH is like working in Hell. Some staff have to report duty as early as 6 am and can only go back at 8:00 pm. Not to mention the on-call duty which can be once very week, working 36 hours without any sleep. Skipping breakfast, lunch or dinner is common. Some staff can only get about 5 hours of sleep. How can one assume everything will be ok if there is such a management of staff.
It is commonly believe that there is shortage of staff but so many years have passed, they can only find foriegn doctors and nurses.. why? Are Singaporeans only working for pay and statue?
If we can find some answer to these question, may be we can find the root cause.
a HK Surgeon was caught falling asleep during surgery. This was reported in the South China Morning Post
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1873500/urgent-case-lawmaker-calls-hong-kong-hospital
The report said,
The online survey, carried out between 2012 and 2013, found that the 599 doctors who responded had to work 61 hours per week on average, including overnight on-call hours. Sleep deprivation - less than six hours in bed - was found to be common among doctors and got worse with increased working hours.
Prolonged hours was seen as directly proportionate to poor work performance. Among those doctors who worked more than 65 hours a week, 14 per cent once fell asleep during surgery.
The amount of medical errors also increased - from 21.8 per cent for doctors working fewer than 50 hours to 36.2 per cent for those on duty for more than 65 hours. "Medical blunders can be caused by many factors," said Leung. "However lack of sleep increases the risk."
The statistic is alarming. Understand our doctors in public hospitals are working around 70 hours per week and some, more than 90 hours per week if they are on-call. That being the case, there are 40% likely chance that a medical blunder will happen. In other word, 4 out of 10 patients walking into our public hospitals may not come out alive if the working conditions of our doctors and nurses have not be improved.
First, we have the Hep C outbreak in SGH where 22 patients were infected and 4 of them reported dead in October 2015 . Then we have the TB outbreak in NUH in early December where 5 children were later found with latent TB. Soon after, we have 14 babies in KKH down with “red eye” disease in December 2015. Then we have a patient who hands and legs were amputated . Also we have a senior doctor in SGH going siow.
These incidences might not be related but if there are is a proper investigation, it is not hard to find out that there are co-relations. Therefore, if the over working environment of our medical staff in our public hospital is not addressed, we can expect more mishap to happen. This will not only destroy our good name as an international Medical hub but also put ourselves at risk especially when our generation is aging and many will need to stay in hospital sooner or later.
I just cannot understand why are our people in MOH are turning a blind eye to this issue?
Thanks for share the mind!
It's sad.