Oman health: Apollo Hospital gets German infection control accreditation

Energy Saturday 17/December/2016 22:07 PM
By: Times News Service
Oman health: Apollo Hospital gets German infection control accreditation

Muscat: Apollo Hospital Muscat has become the first hospital in the Sultanate to be certified for the Infection Control Accreditation Programme (ICAP) by German standards.
This accreditation comes a few months after the Directorate General of Private Health Establishments (DGPHE) sent out a letter to all hospitals in the country, asking the institutions to train all clinical and non-clinical staff in basic infection control.
The ‘GCC Infection Prevention & Control Manual’ was formally adopted in 2010 by the Ministry of Health as the national reference guideline. This protocol is the standard for the whole of the GCC region, but Apollo has taken the initiative to raise the standard, for both the comfort and safety of their patients. The standard also takes into consideration seven other international guidelines.
According the DGHPE Senior Advisor, Gerard Strong, the letter sent out was in direct correlation to the increase in private hospital growth rate.
The certification of the programme is authorized by Dr. Florian H. Brill, the Managing Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology in Germany. This programme involves a once a year audit and will be updated with continuous training.
“The way forward in healthcare will have to be focused on patient safety, infection prevention and control as the key quality and safety measures touching the patient. If you don’t have an option to treat the patient, you can at least prevent infection. Patients can now feel safe in Apollo’s facilitates,” Dr Florian said.
Last year alone, the Ministry of Health recorded over 6,700 communicable and infectious diseases. In 4.1 per cent of all cases of hospitalization in 2015, numbering 133,851, infectious and parasitic diseases were involved. In the same year, the second Principle Cause of Hospital Deaths was also some infectious and parasitic disease claiming the lives of almost 600 people. The leading cause of death at government hospitals are diseases of the circulatory system.
The Managing Director of Apollo Hospital Muscat, V T Saileswaran, believes that the German quality factor goes beyond just wonderful cars.
“I was looking at having a credible agency to audit us and suggest the best infection control and protocols. When it comes to our patients, we would always want to offer the best, ” Saileswaran added.