Going to a hospital for treatment is a normal activity, but patients find they are infected with new diseases at hospitals. Even visitors may become ill, thanks to bacterial contamination.
Hospitals are not safe at all
Le Thi Hang of Ninh Binh went to the hospital to take care of her husband, a builder who suffered a severe injury after he felt from scaffolding. During his treatment, doctors performed minor procedures to help the patient urinate. After 3-4 days, the patient recovered from his injuries but some new, abnormal signs appeared: sharp pain while urinating and blood in his urine. Besides curing his injuries, doctors also had to treat him for cystitis.
“Such phenomena are called bacterial contamination in hospitals. Patients go to hospitals to cure a disease, but during the treatment process, they get a new disease. Bacterial contamination is very popular and has become a worry for hospitals at present because it pulls the treatment quality down,” explained Nguyen Viet Hung, Chief of the Anti-Bacterial Contamination Ward at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi.
In the case of Hang’s husband, health workers failed to follow antiseptic procedures when they put in a catheter. “In more serious case, the patient can catch nephritis from bacterial contamination,” Hung admitted.
At Bach Mai Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in Vietnam, bacterial contamination occurs often. Some patients got pneumonia after they used a respiratory machine because the machine was not decontaminated properly.
“Around 20 percent of the patients who use respiratory machines get pneumonia because of bacterial contamination,” Hung added. “Some patients don’t die of their initial diseases but from the new ones caught from the treatment process that are not discovered and cured in time.”
Not only patients can catch diseases in hospitals. Caregivers are also at risk.
Nguyen Le Thu’s daughter was hospitalized at the Central Tropical Disease Hospital to treat A/H1N1 flu. Thu went to the hospital to take care of the child. Before the child recovered, the mother became a flu patient.
“They call it an isolation area, but it is no different than other sections. The only “isolation” is that everyone is wearing a mask,” Thu revealed.
Doctor Nguyen Hong Ha, Deputy Director of the Central Tropical Diseases Hospital, acknowledged that “Quarantined areas at Vietnamese hospitals don’t meet standards.”
At Bach Mai hospital, the average percentage of patients who catch new diseases is 5.7-6.8 percent, but the rate is up to 40 percent on some wards.
“If patients are infected with new diseases in hospitals, the treatment process will be prolonged by one week on average, while expenditures for treatment will double,” Hung said.
If Bach Mai Hospital receives 300,000 inpatients, with the average percentage of patients who catch new diseases of 5.7-6.8 percent, at least 15,000 patients will need further treatment, totaling an additional of 105,000 days of treatment and 7.5 billion dong of additional hospital fees.
“The patients have to pay more and stay longer in hospitals that are overloaded,” Hung analysed.
Pham Duc Muc, Vice-Head of the Ministry of Health’s Examination and Treatment Department, confirmed: “Bacterial contamination at hospitals increases side-effects, fatality rates, length of treatment, increased use of antibiotics and decline in treatment quality and prestige of hospitals.
“When health workers put equipment into the patient bodies, if their hands are not sterilized, bacterial contamination will occur and vice versa,” Hung noted.
At hospitals, health workers rely on sterilized equipment by steam or driers. Keeping their hands clean is the most simple and economic way to prevent bacterial contamination. But most hospital staff, including health workers, don’t have the habit of washing their hands.
According to Bach Mai Hospital, in 2003 only 13 percent of health workers obeyed the hand-washing rules. The rate is 17 percent in 2007 and 47 percent in 2009.
When performing operations, health workers often don’t decontaminate the patients’ bodies properly, causing an increased risk of incision infections.
The average of bacterial contaminations at Vietnamese hospitals is around 5.8 percent.