Lawsuit Filed in C. Difficile Hospital Deaths
A coroner’s report last year claimed that shoddy infection control and hospital cutbacks in maintenance and room cleanliness is responsible for a Clostridium difficile outbreak that ultimately killed 16 people and sickened 70 others in a Montreal hospital. Relatives of patients who were either infected with the illness or died from it have filed a class-action lawsuit against the local health authority seeking up to $10 Canadian million in damages. The outbreak at the Hopital Honore-Mercier in St. Hyacinthe is considered one of the worst. “We want to send a strong message that infection control must be maintained as a priority by hospitals, administrators and staff,” medical malpractice lawyer Jean-Pierre Ménard told a news conference. “It's not enough for public-health officials to say that it was a virulent strain.” What is especially upsetting is that Quebec had already dealt with a C. difficile epidemic in 2004-2005, yet no one seems to have learned any lessons from the earlier outbreaks added Ménard. The class-action is seeking compensation on three levels. For those who got infected, those whose infections were severe enough to require surgery and for relatives who lost loved ones. C. difficile is a spore-forming bacterium that can last up to 70 days on hospital surfaces. The bug is a major problem in hospitals across Canada, the United States and Europe.
