Pietermaritzburg – Five newborn babies have died at KwaZulu-Natal’s flagship Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban as a result of an outbreak of klebsiella and acinetobacter bacterial infections, the Democratic Alliance claimed on Thursday.
The DA health spokesman Dr Imran Keeka tabled a motion in the provincial legislature calling on the province’s health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo to act against staff who have acted negligently.
Keeka said that the five babies died at the hospital’s neo-natal unit.
Keeka told the legislature that he believed that the hospital management and the head of the neo-natal unit were trying to cover up the outbreak.
“We also advised the MEC that we expect him to ensure that those who delayed in bringing this problem to the fore are dealt with severely and for the head of the unit to be suspended until an investigation absolves him and his staff from any culpability,” said Keeka.
Comment could not immediately be obtained from the KwaZulu-Natal health department.
Two hospital staff members, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the hospital’s infection control section had had an important meeting. But they were unable to say exactly what the meeting was about.
In 2005 there were 22 babies who died at the neo-natal Mahatma Ghandi Memorial Hospital from an outbreak of klebsiella.
A subsequent investigation revealed that the outbreak was linked to a failure of infection control measures.
A previous report by Nelson Mandela School of Medicine’s Professor Willem Sturm, who led the task team to investigate the 2005 outbreak, attributed the outbreak to insufficient hand-washing by staf at the neo-natal intensive care unit.
The contamination was caused by the multiple use of intravenous bottles to administer Vamin-Glucose.
Klebsiella and Acinetobacter baumannii are bacteria that affect people with compromised immune systems. Acinetobacter can be spread by person-to-person contact or contact with contaminated surfaces.
ANA