Health care advocates are voicing their concerns after a second outbreak of C. difficile struck the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in just over a week.
Nine patients are now suffering from the hospital-acquired infection after an outbreak of the potentially deadly bacteria struck a unit at the hospital in December.
Three patients from the same five-bed unit contracted the bacteria last month but the latest two outbreaks involve six patients in separate units on the same floor at the Sydney hospital.
The ages of the patients have not been revealed, but when the C. difficile strikes, health officials say it is often seniors who become infected while they are being treated for other illnesses.
"This is another breakout," says Bernie LaRusic, vice-president of the Cape Breton Seniors Council, which represents 17 Cape Breton seniors' clubs. "We have had deaths in the past. We have not had them this time."
This is not the first time the region has dealt with an outbreak of C. difficile. There have been sporadic cases across the Cape Breton District Health Authority since an outbreak early last year.
"The breaking out again is where we are concerned," says LaRusic. "What and how and why is that happening?"
The latest cases are fewer and more isolated than the cases that struck the region in the spring of 2011, when 64 patients in seven Cape Breton District Health Authority hospitals were stricken.
By the time the outbreak was contained last year, C. difficile had either caused or contributed to the deaths of 11 patients.
Evan Coole with the Nova Scotia Citizens Health Care Network says there is a link between tightened health care budgets and the spread of such hospital-acquired infections.
"Cuts to funding often affect cleaning and maintenance staff," says Coole. "Health authorities are having to do more with less. When the funding is not there, they can't guarantee there will be appropriate levels of staffing for cleaning and maintenance."
Senior medical and management staff lead a hospital outbreak team that meets daily to discuss the ongoing outbreak and their primary mission is to determine if everything possible is being done to limit the spread of C. difficile.
Meanwhile, the Cape Breton District Health Authority has adopted a series of recommendations included in a federal public health report that was commissioned after the last outbreak of C. difficile in the spring of 2011.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Randy MacDonald
