Hospital infection kills more babies

Five babies have now died from antibiotic-resistant klebsiella at the Thelle Mogoerane Hospital in Vosloorus, Ekurhuleni, as the hospital shuts down wards and struggles to find the source of the bacteria, the Democratic Alliance said yesterday.

“I visited the hospital last week to check up on sources who told me more babies had died after it was revealed two weeks ago that two of seven babies infected with klebsiella had died,” DA Gauteng MPL Jack Bloom said.

He welcomed the decision by the Gauteng health department to put the hospital’s chief executive on special leave, “as she ignored warnings by staff that overcrowding in the neonatal ward increased the risk of infection”.

“Klebsiella infection has been confirmed in 11 babies,” he said.

The remaining infected babies have been isolated and the neonatal and labour wards scrubbed down. New maternity and neonatal patients had been diverted to other hospitals. – ANA