IT’S MUCH too soon to jump to conclusions regarding the tragic outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease at a maternity ward in one of Nicosia’s top private clinics, which has claimed the life of one baby and left another ten newborns fighting for their lives in intensive care at the capital’s specialist paediatric Makarios Hospital.
The ward at the Ippocration clinic where the outbreak originated has been closed down pending full investigations, and government scientists were yesterday collecting samples for analysis to pinpoint the exact cause of the infection. Parents will want answers, as indeed will the broader public, but now is not the time to point fingers. Indeed, while the Health Minister was right to promise a thorough investigation, he was premature in speaking of possible criminal responsibility – even in qualified terms – at a time when the inquiry has barely begun. Such talk raises expectations of punishment among victims, when a criminal level of responsibility is actually incredibly hard to pin down in such cases.
Likewise, the director of the clinic involved was wrong in blaming the water supply for the outbreak. In a small place like Cyprus, an outbreak of this kind is likely to have crippling consequences for the clinic, and his desire to turn the blame away from his own establishment is understandable, but to blame the public water supply at this stage is irresponsible and tantamount to scare mongering.
The fact is that hospitals are breeding grounds for bacteria of all sorts, and infections are commonplace. During the summer, patients of the intensive care unit at the general hospital had to be evacuated to private clinics – including the Ippocration – after such an outbreak. And a European report in 2006 showed that Cyprus had one of the worst infection rates in Europe for the hospital-acquired superbug MRSA, second only to Romania.
Most victims of hospital-contracted infections are elderly and already seriously ill. Their deaths pass unnoticed as ‘complications’ of their original condition, keeping this very serious issue away from the headlines. Yet in the UK, which also has a very serious superbug problem, and also saw Legionnaire’s outbreaks in hospitals in the 1980s, public outrage has forced action to implement draconian new health and cleanliness standards on wards and among staff.
It’s tragic that a newborn baby should have to die for questions to be asked, but the clinic involved should not be the only one to answer those questions. There may be specific circumstances to this case, but the general questions apply across the health sector in Cyprus, both private and public. Let us hope that this provokes a broader examination of standards in hospitals in Cyprus, so that not just children do not die, but also the elderly whose deaths are too often brushed under the carpet as if their lives were somehow of lesser value to our society.
