Article content

A suburban Toronto hospital is asking its patients to make an unusual — and somewhat smelly — deposit upon their admittance to the facility.

North York General is building what may be the world’s first fecal self-banking system, collecting and freezing patient stools to use as an antidote against possible infection with C. difficile.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Toronto hospital building a revolutionary 'poop bank' as antidote against C. difficile Back to video

The fledgling poop bank is the latest step in the development of a remarkable, if mildly nauseating, treatment for a hospital-acquired super bug that has claimed thousands of Canadian lives.

It would lower the bar, because all of a sudden you have all or most of the benefits of stool transplant, but you’ve taken away all of the major risks

Transplants of fecal material are designed to restore the natural, positive bacteria that normally reside in the gastro-intestinal tract and keep C difficile at bay. Studies have suggested the low-tech, unorthodox measure can eradicate illness even in patients who have suffered repeated, debilitating bouts.

Hospitals now acquire stools from close relatives or, failing that, unrelated donors, but experts say transplanting someone else’s excrement — and the many unidentified microbes it harbours — could be courting disaster. Some hospital administrators have balked at allowing the practice.