The infection of four premature babies at Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv with an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria this week is not the first time that infants or other patients have been infected with resistant bacteria while hospitalized in Israel. Although the infected infants are not currently ill, if the resistant bacteria spread through their systems, it will be very difficult to treat them and their lives may be at risk. According to Health Ministry statistics, one in every four or five newborn babies treated at neonatal intensive care units in Israel are at risk of blood infections, an incidence of infection four times that of Western Europe and the United States. According to expert assessments published in the comptroller's report, between 4,000 and 6,000 patients die each year as a result of infections they contracted while hospitalized, in many instances, as a result of the hospitalization itself. Experts have made it clear that the main way to reduce the phenomenon is by making sure medical and nursing staff comply with hand hygiene practices, meaning that they should wash their hands between each patient. According to studies and surveys done in Israel, a significant percentage of medical staff does not regularly adhere to the hygiene guidelines. It is clear to the heads of the health system in Israel, as in the rest of the world, that infections of patients, and especially premature infants, with aggressive bacteria can be prevented or at least greatly reduced. Everyone also knows that the main way to do this is to significantly increase nursing staff, improve and budget for medical equipment, designate significant budgets for ongoing staff education and advocacy, and have the Health Ministry regularly and transparently inspect the extent of infections in every department in every hospital in Israel. Last July, senior Health Ministry officials presented the Knesset's State Control Committee with a national plan to prevent infections at a special annual budget of around 50 million shekels. This is a drop in the bucket. Health Ministry Director-General Moshe Bar Siman Tov's comments at the time can be seen as evidence. "If we would have genuinely wanted to deal with the problem of infections, we would have needed to double the budget of hospitals in Israel," he said. Many of these instances are dependent, quite literally, on the hands of the medical and nursing staff and the extent to which they comply with accepted norms in their treatment of patients. As long as the Health Ministry and the Finance Ministry do not allocate a significant budget to a national plan to prevent infections in hospitals around Israel, many patients, including newborn premature infants, will continue to join the dangerous statistic.
