What is hospital-acquired infection?
- WHO reports, over 1.4 million people across the globe suffer from nosocomial or hospital-acquired infection (HAI). It account for over 2 million cases and 80,000 deaths a year.
- The most common types of HAIs are bloodstream infection, pneumonia, urinary tract infection and surgical site infections.
Why people acquire HAIs?
- HAIs are caused mainly due to lack of compliance with infection control guidelines, such as hand hygiene and usage of outdated technology.
- Also, in India, adherence to structured practicing ways are irregular and hospital accreditation is not mandatory.
- This situation is further aggravated by the fact that public hospitals receive insufficient funds, which results in low nurse-to-patient ratios. This proved to be directly connected to high HAI rates in ICUs.
What can be done to combat HAIs?
- The first step will be to improve hygiene practices and implement standard operating procedures in all the process of a hospital.
- Having one nurse for three beds in an ICU is an important risk factor. With limited resources, providing good service is getting severely hampered.
- The excessive use of antibiotics increases resistance. Therefore, the approach must be to prevent infections and in the process, we can bring down the HAI rate together.
Source: The Hindu