SERVICES at a major Brisbane hospital with an outbreak of a "super bug" will not be disrupted despite two wards being closed, its clinical chief says.
The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital clinical chief executive officer, Professor Keith McNeil, said staff were working to eradicate vancomycin resistant enterococcus (VRE), which is resistant to antibiotics.
On Friday, the hospital closed two 30-bed wards to new admissions when 21 patients tested positive to the bug, caused by an enterococcus bacteria which normally lives safely in the bowel.
The medical wards are being disinfected and patients are being screened as they leave.
Prof McNeil said staff had been put on extra shifts to carry out the "labour-intensive" cleaning, but said hospital was not under unusual strain.
"Bed pressures are ever present every day," he said.
"We run a balance between the number of people that are coming in and the number of people who (we) are able to discharge, so we have to put in strategies to try and maintain that throughput of patients.
"At this point in time we are not having any difficulties."
Most patients who tested positive to the bug were not sick, Prof McNeil said.
However, people with low immunity - including those with chronic disease, organ transplant recipients, diabetics and elderly people - can suffer severe infection, which is difficult to treat because of the bug's resistance.
Prof McNeil said some patients receiving dialysis had tested positive but had not come down with "overwhelming illness" as yet.
He said dealing with super bugs was now part of the day-to-day management of all hospitals.
"That's part of being a big teaching hospital," he said.
"We're not unique in this - this happens all around Australia and all around the developed world."
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