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80
ments were made for their removal to Queen Charlotte's
Isolation Hospital.
No other patient had become infected, and the
Hospital was by 7th February completely empty of
patients except for one who was making normal progress,
and who left the Hospital on Friday, 12th February. Or
the departure of this patient, the whole Hospital and contents
were disinfected, and the Hospital remained closed
pending the Spring decorations.
When one conies to the investigation of the actual
origin of the infection, one is faced with difficulties. The
possibility of the first case being an auto-infection is not
to be overlooked, although this must be considered
unusual, and that she herself spread the infection to the
other patients in the ward. It is also to be noted that she
herself arrived in Hospital with labour advanced and
membranes ruptured prior to admission.
In no other ward did the infection arise. At the
beginning of the infection I suspected Nurse (1), who
attended as a midwife to Ward IV., but swabs from her
proved negative. She was, however, immediately suspended
for the four days pending the results of the swahs
being received. Two assistant nurses, (4) and (3), were
the only nurses to have positive swab results, these being
received by telephone on Thursday, 4th February. Nurse
(4) was immediately suspended from duty and sent home
Nurse (3) had already contracted an acute throat and had
been admitted to the Isolation Hospital. Nurse (4) had
attended Ward IV. as an assistant nurse, but had also
attended patients in other wards, and this tends to shovf
that site was not the infecting person as no patient other
than in Ward IV. contracted a temperature. Both Nurse
(4) and Nurse (3) were "grouped" for type of infection
Nurse (2), midwife, who was the Nurse previously
mentioned with a history of headache but no temperature
on the 27th January had been placed off duty on that day,
but returned to duty on Friday, 29tli January. A swab
taken from her on the 31st January proved positive on
3rd February. This suggests a possible source of infection
in the Hospital, but so far as I am able to find out she did