Twins die due to CRE infection

A couple from Rynfield lost their twin daughters to the carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae infection (CRE) at a Germiston hospital last year, the same virus which claimed the lives of 10 babies at Tembisa Hospital in January.

While we have to deal with our twin daughters passing away, it has also been hard for a four-year-old daughter as she doesn’t understand why her sisters weren’t coming home.

These were the words of Ilze Muller, who lost her twin daughter’s K’lynn and Kiara due to the carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae infection (CRE).

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K’lynn and Kiara were born on November 18 at Life Roseacres, in Primrose.

Ilze said the twins were born at 30 weeks, as she was booked for four weeks bed rest, however she didn’t feel well and the doctor said the babies had to be born.

K’lynn was born at 1.1 kg and Kiara at 1.5 kg.

“After giving birth, the doctor told me my babies were okay, they had no lung issues however they were given extra oxygen, but only to assist the lungs in the interim as they were born quite early, said Ilze.

“The twins were in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) so they can gain a bit of weight before they can go home.”
Ilze said they were excited about the pregnancy, as it took them four years to conceive after their first child and she had no complications.

The Rynfield resident said three days later, the doctor told them that Kiara’s infection count was high and she might have got it from Ilze but she wasn’t sick.

“On Saturday morning (November 23), Kiara was doing well and was taken off the ventilator and just put on normal oxygen and her feeds increased again.

“However, later in the evening, her father Wouter saw something coming out of her mouth and we asked the nurse three times what that was but they didn’t know and said nothing, she said.

“On November 24, Kiara was very sick, we were told she had a stomach infection, we came home and waited for them to call us and let us know how she was doing, and they didn’t.

“When we called them, the nurse told us she was no better or worse.”

After phoning the hospital, the Dr phoned back later and told us that Kiara had a hole in her intestines that is causing the NEC infection and she must be transferred to Netcare Clinton Hospital.

“When we got to Netcare Clinton Hospital, the doctor wasn’t happy as her stomach was distended and turned blue; they then did the operation at 8 pm to remove the infected intestine and worst case scenario attach a stoma bag for the interim.

“When the doctors conducted the operation, they found that her intestines were all severely infected that most tissue was dead already and there was nothing they can do, we just had to wait for the organs to fail, said Ilze with tears on her eyes.

Kaira passed away the following morning on November 25.

Ilze said as they were making funeral arrangements, they decided to also transfer K’lynn to the Netcare Clinton Hospital just in case she gets sick also.

“The doctor at Clinton Hospital told us Kiara was given too much formula milk; they were supposed to be fed breastmilk or donated breastmilk, not formula milk.

On November 25, K’lynn was transferred around 6 pm and she was doing well according to Roseacres.

“When we got to the hospital, we’re told that K’lynn needed platelets as well as blood as her count was very low. Something Roseacres didn’t pick up, she said.

“The following day (November 26), I saw another mom in Clinton whose baby was also at Life Roseacres with us.

“She confirmed her son was also very sick the night of the 24th of November 24 and was transferred early Sunday morning to Clinton. Her son was operated on the Sunday afternoon just before Kiara was moved to Clinton, as he also had an NEC infection and had a stoma bag attached.”

“Two days later, after K’Lynn was moved to Clinton, the doctor at Clinton confirmed that all three babies from Roseacres had the CRE infection and it was in their bloodstream. CRE is very resistant to antibiotics and need to be treated with a course of different antibiotics at different times. The survival rate of CRE is +- 50 percent.

Ilze alleges that the doctor at Clinton told the doctor at Roseacres to close down their newborn intensive care unit as the CRE infection came from the unit.

On December 7 she started to get sick and needed a blood transfusion as her counts were very low. She didn’t respond to treatment but also doctors couldn’t pick up anything on her x-rays.

“On December 12, the doctors did a sonar scan and found that she had fluid in her stomach and they needed to do an operation.

“During the operation, they found that she had gastrointestinal perforation, said Ilze.

With tears on her eyes, she explained that the operation went well but there were a few complications, she was taken off of the oxygen tubes to the ventilator then to the oscillator.

“On December 16, she wasn’t doing well and needed another operation as her acid count was high and the doctors thought she might have a new NEC infected piece of intestine, her platelets were low and she could bleed out.

“So we had to either operate or let it be, they then did the operation and she made it.

“It was then discovered that it wasn’t her intestine but the CRE was preventing her oxygen and blood from functioning properly,” she said.

K’lynn passed away on December 18 and she was one month old.

The parents said they never received any communication wrt the infection picked up there from Life Roseacres.
“We never got any apologies, no sympathy or any remorse; the doctors made us feel like our daughters were doing well while they were not, said Ilze.

“While K’lynn was doing well, we had hope but essentially it was the hope that killed us.

“We are heartbroken because our babies were born without any problems and they just passed away.” And it feels like there is a no care attitude from Roseacres and this is a normal “event” that occurred.

Wouter said he emailed the Life Healthcare group, they responded a few days later via telephone call saying they are sorry, the NICU was cleaned and their doctors and staff members were getting additional training etc wrt CRE.

Ilze and Wouter said they want to make the public aware such things can also happen in private hospitals and it’s not only the government hospitals that need to be exposed.

Hospital responds
Henriette Pretorius, hospital manager of Life Roseacres Hospital, said the hospital is deeply saddened to have heard of the death of the Muller twins, which only later came to their attention.

“We understand how distressing the loss may be for the parents, family and friends and our thoughts are with them during this difficult time,” said Pretorius.

“One of the twins was transferred from our NICU to another medical facility, which alerted us that the baby had been affected with the OXA-48 bacteria.”

Pretorius said they immediately followed standard infection prevention and control protocols and procedures to determine whether other infants in their unit had been affected and put the necessary steps in place to manage this.

“This included a screening process to ensure that no other babies had become colonised.

“The infection may have been a result of either a community acquired infection or a hospital acquired infection; however, we were not able to determine the origin of the infection.

“This group of bacteria usually lives harmlessly in the human intestine (gut). Premature babies, especially those born very early, often have complications and are at high risk of infection and other medical complications,” she said.

“We take allegations of negligence very seriously and have offered to meet with the family to hear their concerns and are available to still do so at their convenience.

“As a result of patient confidentiality constraints, we are unable to disclose further medical details relating to the twins while in our care,” said Pretorius.