Hospital on alert after 19 die from infections
The capital’s Evangelismos hospital has been put on alert following 19 deaths caused by infections in the facility’s two intensive-care units in recent weeks. According to data presented at a recent conference of the Hellenic Association of Intensive Care and reported by the Athens daily Eleftheros Typos, 140 patients were treated in the hospital’s two ICUs in the past three months. A total of 87 cases of infections and 19 deaths were recorded in this time, the paper said, noting that the mortality rate among patients infected in one ICU was 32 percent, while in the other, the incidence of infection reached 116 percent (as some patients were infected by more than one microbe). The main cause of the infections was the serious shortage of nursing staff, the newspaper said, quoting hospital administrators. It added that the hospital was mulling specific measures such as isolating infected patients.
