FG call for protection of hospital informers
The party’s health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey also called for the introduction of a mandatory uniform system for hospitals to detect and report infectious diseases and for the establishment of an infection control inspectorate to carry out unannounced hygiene and infection controls.
Dr Twomey’s comments are in the wake of revelations that approximately 8,000 patients in more than 30 hospitals were infected by MRSA and other potentially fatal superbugs last year.
Yesterday, the Health Service Executive (HSE) said it would ask hospitals to publish their MRSA figures in the coming months. The HSE will also ask hospitals to report on progress in combating hospital acquired infections every three months.
“It is important to realise that hand-washing is the single most effective way of preventing the spread of MRSA,” a HSE spokesperson said.
The latest figures paint a much broader picture of the level of superbug infection than was previously available. Health authorities had indicated the total number of MRSA bloodstream infections for 2004 was about 500 but a breakdown of the number of infections per hospital was not given.
New figures show the highest numbers of MRSA bloodstream infections were in large hospitals such as Dublin’s Mater, where 77 patients had MRSA bloodstream infections and St James’s Hospital, which had 65 cases. Cork University Hospital was third highest with 50 cases.
A spokesperson for Beaumont Hospital, the only hospital which refused to supply superbug figures, said those available were “very raw” and misleading because they were not gathered in a standardised way.
This is backed by the May edition of Eurosurveillance, a European journal which publishes information on communicable diseases. A study of MRSA in hospitals in the mid-west, published in the journal, warned it was important to take into account the difference in the relative size of hospitals as well as services and case-mix.
It said attribution of a case of MRSA to a particular healthcare facility is “fraught with problems”, that the patient may have MRSA before being admitted or on referral from another hospital.
It also warned: “Large hospitals may have higher rates of MRSA given that they provide more specialist services for patients with complex medical needs.”
Teresa Graham, founder member of the pressure group MRSA And Families, whose husband Dermot died of the disease, called for continuous assessment of hospitals and a dedicated phoneline for people to report hygiene problems on wards.
Ms Graham said if people were told about how to prevent the spread of infection, by maintaining their own personal hygiene and complaining if tidiness and cleanliness standards were not met, the disease could be brought under control.
At a meeting in Cork on Tuesday night of a new MRSA and Families support group, a 66-year-old Corkman, Dermot McNamara said he had picked up a strain of MRSA in a Cork hospital. He described himself as “a ticking timebomb.” Two parents said their newborns were infected in Cork maternity wards.
A statement from the HSE said an independent report on a hygiene audit of more than 50 acute hospitals nationally will be finalised by the end of next month. Inspections being conducted under the audit are unannounced. The final report will form the basis for a set of National Guidelines that will establish best practice in the area.
A Cork-based survey published last month showed the cost of hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA to the health service is in the region of €150 million a year.
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