Glen's story - hospital associated infections

13 December 2011

The Victorian Infection Control Professionals Association (VICPA) has produced a video to show how hospital associated infections can have a serious impact on a person’s health outcomes.

In Australia each year, it is estimated there are 200,000 hospital-associated infections and many of these infections are preventable.

The VICPA video, Glen’s story, aims to support healthcare professionals in their infection prevention and control initiatives.

The video was produced with the assistance and support of a family who share their experience and the impact that acquiring a hospital associated infection has had on their lives.

 

Video transcript

Glen's story

He went and just had some blood tests and then at that stage we were all just thinking it would be a general viral illness.

They were not sure what kind of leukaemia he had but they anticipated we would be an inpatient in hospital for roughly around a month.

Within about a 24 hour period Glen had had a Hickman's line inserted and chemotherapy had been started.

It seemed like every infection that Glen could get he got, and the worst of them. Then he got the MRSA bacteraemia.

We believe that the majority of catheter related blood infections are preventable and in fact centres that stick to the best practice guidelines, they have rates approaching zero.

I got a phone call from his mum saying that they had had a met call from him and he was dropping his blood pressure and he was going off to ICU with this MRSA bacteraemia.

I guess you have times where you see him really really unwell and you think he is going to be okay, he has to be okay, he has to just keep fighting it.

Preventing catheter related blood stream infectious in the healthcare setting is everyone's business. So clearly the people who are inserting the lines, through to the people who are managing the lines on a daily basis, teams that are involved in consulting on patients are involved, managers in the critical care areas and in the rest of the hospital are also involved but most importantly the CEOs and the board of management needs to take this on as an absolute priority as well.

I do remember the day that the haematologist walked in a said that Glen had his neutrophils back that his immune system was coming back and he was still here with us and that was just the biggest blessing, like she was coming to tell us the news that we have been waiting for.

It's quite incredible that I survived and certainly I treasure life at this stage. I really have no long lasting side effects as a result of my inpatient stay. So despite my complications, I've come out fit and fighting at the other end.

There is an ancient dictum in medicine that we should do no harm. I think sometimes as clinicians, doctors and nurses, we forget when we are concentrating on the problem at hand in front of us that actually what we regard as relatively minor things like hand hygiene or aseptic technique, if not observed may have devastating consequences for the patient and their family down the track.

I think it's really important to recognise that wholeheartedly we are there to advocate for patients, and advocate for the best care for patients and having dealt with that first hand as a personal experience, I feel that I try and make that the most important thing in my job.

The video was launched at the 5th International Congress of the Asia Pacific Society of Infection Control, held in Melbourne from 8 to 11 November 2011.

Further information

For further information on the video, contact Glenys Harrington, VICPA Video Project Team Coordinator, on 0404 816 434.