DAILY GRAPHIC, Wednesday, February 8, 2012, Pg. 48. No evidence of MRSA at Children's Hospital

Story: Mary Ankrah

THE management of Princess Marie Louise Hospital in Accra says there is no evidence of the Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) bacteria at the hospital.

The hospital’s officials, however, say they were waiting for the blood culture report of the patients referred from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

The blood culture report is a test to determine an infection in the blood.

When the Daily Graphic visited the Princess Marie Louise hospital emergency ward, it was full with children paired on a bed, but the hospital authorities said pairing was due to lack of beds and the increase in the number of patients.

The Outpatient Department (OPD) was also full of patients who had to wait for several hours to be attended to by doctors and nurses.

According to the specialist in charge of the emergency ward, Dr Margaret Niezer, two of the children referred from Korle-Bu had died at the ward.

One of the children, she stated, suffered from severe dehydration coupled with diarrhoea while the other suffered from cerebral malaria.

Dr Niezer said last month 10 children died at the hospital from various severe aliments.

The managements of the hospital, therefore, urged the government to increase the number of nurses and doctors to offset the recent pressure on the hospital.


They also called on the government to recruit three separate sets of staff to attend to patients in the morning, afternoon and evening.

It would be recalled that authorities of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital last week closed down the Children's Ward of the hospital following the outbreak of a bacterial infection, MRSA.

A press release issued in Accra by the hospital said five cases had so far been diagnosed among children on admission at the ward and they were undergoing treatment.

The press release said the infection had not spread to other parts of the hospital.

Meanwhile, it said the hospital's authorities were screening both patients and staff in the affected ward to ensure that they were free from the infection.