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6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday May 30, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher DAVID HARVEY General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA ANCHOR Circ. Manager Don't play politics with superbug We hope the Ontario government's decision to forego a public inquiry into the deaths of hundreds of patients in Ontario hospitals from C. difficile bacteria was motivated by protecting the public, rather than saving their own political skins. Health Minister George Smitherman rejected a public inquiry on the grounds the government and hospital officials already have all the information they need to deal with C. difficile outbreaks. An inquiry would only delay new safety protocols even longer, he said. An inquiry would also cost millions of dollars, which may be put to better use in the health care system fighting this deadly disease. No doubt, though, a public inquiry could raise embarrassing questions about whether the Ontario government reacted quickly enough to initial reports of C. difficile outbreaks at hospitals. Did people die needlessly because local hospitals lacked direction or funding from the province to control the outbreaks? These questions will likely remain unanswered. The government has ruled all Ontario hospitals must start reporting the number of C. difficile cases as of Sept. 30. But should it have been done earlier? As for Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH), the numbers are far less shocking than at Burlington's Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital where C. difficile has caused 62 deaths from May 1, 2006 to Dec. 31, 2007. In comparison, three patients died as a direct result of C. difficile from November 2007 to April 2008 at OTMH. Another five patients died as an indirect result of contracting C. difficile. Another 10 had the disease, but it did not cause their death. From January 2007 to November 2007, nine patients -- all seniors -- died either as a direct result of the infection, or with C. difficile playing a significant role. Is the Oakville hospital doing enough? Based on what hospital officials detailed to us in a story last week, OTMH battling deadly superbug, we believe it is. Although the hospital is not faced with an outbreak, it is faced with a serious challenge. C. difficile is not referred to as a superbug for nothing. It is a nasty bacteria that is difficult to control. Ironically, the very antibiotics that are used to save the lives of patients in hospitals, also leave them susceptible to C. difficile. For this reason, seniors are especially vulnerable to this deadly bacteria. In responding to the disease, OTMH has upgraded its cleaning procedures, added 500 hand hygiene units and replaced all bed mattresses and pull cords used by patients to call nurses. It has also created isolation cleaning teams, which were trained by Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences centre to combat the bacteria and has a multi-disciplinary team meet weekly to monitor the situation. Perhaps the most telling statement came from Trish Carlton, of Halton Healthcare Services communications: "We aren't sitting around counting numbers, we are being very proactive, but it is a challenge, a real challenge. In the meantime, what can we do? It would seem the best action is to follow your mother's age-old advice and wash your hands thoroughly before entering and after leaving the hospital. People go to hospital hoping to come out cured of their illness. They should not have to worry about contracting another more deadly disease during their hospital stay. The bottom line is that the Liberal government has to put the safety of the public above whatever concerns it may have about its own political future. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. Netherlands owes great debt to Canadian soldiers The Kids Speak Out column New Central celebrates liberation of Dutch, written by three students (Oakville Beaver, May 23) in the 23 May Oakville Beaver, struck a chord. I was their age in May 1945 when the North Nova Scotia Highlanders came to my town in the Netherlands, after five years of German occupation. The memory of welcoming them remains fresh. Canadian soldiers freed much of the Netherlands in the last year of the Second World War, at the cost of some 7,000 dead. One Oakville resident among them was Denis Whitaker, a pre-war football star, who became a battalion commander in the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (the Lights) and spearheaded a crucial campaign in October, 1944: the taking of Walcheren, an island in the southwestern Dutch province of Zealand. German artillery there interdicted shipping into Antwerp, Belgium. Access to that seaport was crucial to supplying the Allied armies closing in on Germany. Canada saw conscription during the Second World War, but you had to volunteer for overseas service. The soldiers I saw in 1945 wore a small silver maple leaf on one of their ribbons showing they had chosen to serve abroad. For many years after the war, that emblem appeared on the uniforms of some graying members of the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. I always felt like saluting them -- but "civvies" don't do that. SANDER SCHIMMELPENNINCK Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline.