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Christchurch Hospital - Source: ONE News -
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Christchurch Hospital has closed one of its surgical wards after five patients tested positive for the antibiotic-resistant bacteria MRSA.
The ward will remain closed to new admissions until all tests on patients and staff return a negative result, a district health board spokeswoman says.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is generally harmless for healthy people but can cause infections that are hard to treat in people who are already unwell.
"Canterbury District Health Board hospitals are among an increasingly small number of hospitals in the world where MRSA is not present all the time and we want to keep it that way," says Christchurch Hospital interim general manager Ruth Barclay.
"It is a difficult bug to control as it is ever present in the community but for the sake of our patients we work hard to keep it out of our hospitals."
Good handwashing is the most powerful infection control precaution that can be taken and this is being emphasised with staff, patients and visitors to the hospital, she says.
