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North Shore Hospital - Source: ONE News -
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North Shore hospital wards may be split into two sections as health officials try to control a superbug crisis which can kill patients.
Patients with the Extended-spectrum B-lacatamases (ESBL) superbug would be kept in one section of a ward and separate from those free of the bug.
Health authorities say up to one in five patients in North Shore Hospital was contracting the bug, most from within the hospital.
Hospital staff have implemented rigid hygiene practices, including gloves, gowns and sometimes masks. They have also installed special cleaning fluids in bottles around the wards and toilet blocks.
The bug is carried in the bowel and could be fatal if it crossed into the blood, the New Zealand Herald said on Saturday.
Five patient deaths had been linked to the bug in the nine months to April in the Waitemata health district, which includes the North Shore Hospital in Takapuna.
The Waitemata District Health Board (DHB) says splitting wards into separate sections would be extreme.
Red, amber and green rooms are already allocated for those with the bug, those waiting results and those with no sign of the bug.
The paper said the number of ESBL cases in New Zealand had risen sharply from nearly zero in 1999 to more than 5000 last year. The worst affected regions are Auckland and Hawkes Bay.
In the Waitemata DHB area, North Shore Hospital was worse affected than Waitakere Hospital.
Health authorities were impressing on nursing and health staff the importance of strict hygiene after staff were believed to be inadvertently transferring the bacteria during normal healthcare procedures.
The bug had become resistant to a range of antibiotic drugs.
In nine months to April this year 13 Waitemata health board patients had ESBL blood-infection and five died, the Herald reported.
Chief medical officer Associate Professor Johan Rosman says the patients who died were aged over 70 with a variety of serious illnesses and ESBL was not the cause of death.
ESBL is less prevalent in the Auckland and Counties Manukau district health boards.
Have you been affected by problems at North Shore hospital? ONE News would like to hear from you. Contact news@tvnz.co.nz or 0800 886 397
