By Professor John Robertson
BBC Reporting Scotland’s Lisa Summers is today, all day, milking the Glasgow hospital deaths being investigated by an inquiry, but then relying heavily on the concerns of relatives who understandably looking for answers they’d be more comfortable with and, dare I say, opportunities to take legal action against the NHS.
As always, and across ‘our’ MSM, there is only personalised, sensationalised and tragically simplified comment, no hard evidence such as:
First, infections after surgery are more likely due to bacteria already on your skin than from microbes in the hospital
Most health care-associated infections are caused by previously harmless bacteria that patients already had on their bodies before they even entered the hospital.1
Most infections in hospitalized patients are endogenous, meaning they are caused by bacteria that have already colonized the patient’s digestive tract prior to infection. Nosocomial [brought in by patients, relatives] infections more than double the mortality and morbidity risk for hospitalized patients, resulting in an estimated 20,000 deaths a year2
Second, there was no statistically meaningful mortality spike
As in the Lucy Letby case, we see the dangers of widespread ignorance of statistical significance among, of course, patients and journos, but also among some experts in medical fields.
An increase in mortality in the QEUH child cancer wards was detected by investigators in 20193 but crucially this report’s key comment below were not reported:
It is not possible to determine whether changes in episodes are confounded by changes in the patient population and their underlying medical conditions.3
The spike/blip may be as much the result of more children coming in already infected as of more becoming infected after being admitted.
In the monthly analysis of environmental bacteria positive blood cultures, the numbers are small and should be treated with caution. (p21)
A ‘spike’ in hospital acquired infections or in already infected admissions? A ‘spike’ or a tiny ‘blip?’ Graphs can be misleading depending on how you scale them. The graph shows the number of blood samples containing bacteria in each three-month period. In a three-month period, thousands will be treated. I can’t find the figures. There are 244 paediatric beds in the unit and around 400 children in care on any one day. If it were to be accurate rather than melodramatic, the graph would need to use daily, rather than quarterly figures, and still need to be extended upward SIXTEEN times higher making the spike seem, as it is, really a tiny blip. If they insist on using quarterly figures in a vain attempt to generate any visible data and pattern of change, then it would need to be extended upward as much as 50 times or perhaps more depending on how many children were treated in a period of three months and you’d need a magnifying glass to see the so-called spike.
The increases are statistically insignificant and becoming in 2019, almost nil.
Third, Scotland’s hospitals are cleaner because cleaning is managed inhouse
In Scotland, the decision was taken in 2008, against the background of major problems in British hospitals with infections resistant to treatment. The Scottish ministry of health banned any further contracting-out of these services, so that when existing contracts expire all work returns and remains in-house. It also financed the employment of 600 extra cleaners to raise standards of cleanliness.
Contracting-out remains in the fourth and largest country in the UK, England.4
Fourth, QEUH’s child cancer wards had the same infection rate as other hospitals
As early as 2019, Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board had commissioned an independent expert report and this had found that there was ‘no evidence of a single point of exposure [in the building] causing the blood stream infection‘, implying that the bacteria could have been brought into the wards by visitors, and that infection rates in QEUH’s child cancer wards were no different from those in NHS Grampian and Lothian equivalents (p54). 5
Sources:
- https://theconversation.com/infections-after-surgery-are-more-likely-due-to-bacteria-already-on-your-skin-than-from-microbes-in-the-hospital-new-research-227435
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2632/#:~:text=Most%20infections%20in%20hospitalized%20patients,digestive%20tract%20prior%20to%20infection.&text=The%20majority%20(60%20percent)%20of,evidence%2Dbased%20practices%20are%20presented.
- https://hpspubsrepo.blob.core.windows.net/hps-website/nss/2902/documents/2_review-of-nhsggc-paediatric-haemato-oncology-data.pdf
- https://www.epsu.org/article/uk-hospital-cleaning-brought-house-scotland-wales-n-ireland
- https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/corporate-report/2021/03/queen-elizabeth-university-hospital-nhs-greater-glasgow-clyde-oversight-board-final-report/documents/queen-elizabeth-university-hospital-nhs-greater-glasgow-clyde-oversight-board-final-report/queen-elizabeth-university-hospital-nhs-greater-glasgow-clyde-oversight-board-final-report/govscot%3Adocument/queen-elizabeth-university-hospital-nhs-greater-glasgow-clyde-oversight-board-final-report.pdf
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Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
This thought passes through my mind on a regular basis: how much money have anti-SNP unionists cost Scotland in spurious complaints resulting in ridiculous investigations or in some cases forced and expensive changes as councillors or other social agents buckle under the ensuing media deluge? £tens of millions, no doubt.
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As a fairly regular visitor, in the past, to Ninewells where I took part in several drug trials, I couldn’t help but wonder how a place like that could possibly be free from germs. I’ve taken flights from quieter airports. The footfall is constant, no matter what time of the day. I’ve no doubt that most ‘hospital acquired’ infections were imported either by patients themselves, often arriving straight from accident sites, or brought in by the thousands of visitors. It must be an impossible task to get to the bottom of infections given the daily number of people through those doors.
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True, but specialist wards are a very different environment with stringent precautions taken, you can’t just walk in there as the BBC would have the public believe…
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I was a little early for a hospital appointment last week, I decided to have a cup of coffee in the cafeteria located inside the main entrance. I was there for almost half an hour but early on my attention was taken u a notice asking visitors to use the hand cleansers located of which there were 3. During that time not a single visitor entering or leaving( staff excuded) used the hand cleansers.
Just saying like.
Golfnut
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That’s true. People don’t do it.
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I noted the ” Widow accuses health board of ‘letting families down’ over deaths ” this morning took every opportunity to dredge up everything including “Milly Main”, all based on the basis of evidence to be given at some later date by Mrs Slorance.
This witch hunt began on the dishon Sarah Smith’s watch, presumably her successor’s appointment was conditional on carrying on the propaganda war, not that James Cook was historically averse to inventing Spanish emails “we have seen” that neither party involved had.
What a shower BBC Scotland are…..
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The QEUH was built on budget and completed ahead of schedule – just a matter of weeks but still ahead of schedule. Those two facts were enough to ensure it became a target and so it has proved. Every story has to emphasise the negative and, by constant repetition, blow it up out of all proportion.
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Yep. When the “contaminated water” story broke I was curious why not a solitary scientist or engineer or even SW had been called to answer questions, but have a vague recollection of Poison Pennington having been exhumed…
At one point mention was made of a legionella report, then the penny dropped, and sure enough it proved true – Pre-commissioning risk-checks are entirely independent – In this instance a legionella check on a shower room – The dishon Sarah Smith sought to exploit the risk assessment by suggesting Milly Main may have been infected in ICU by a shower not yet commissioned, and NOBODY questioned it because dSS is a winner – This is I believe the cruelest part of this episode, to so abuse a grieving mother over the death of her daughter for the sake of a ‘story’. And here today is James Cook continuing this farce because he (in his own mind) is equally a “winner”..
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