Parents raise MRSA concerns

PARENTS called for greater openness about superbugs in maternity hospitals as Minister for Health Mary Harney admitted full details about infection rates would not be available any time soon.

Ms Harney said it was intended to publish infection data on every individual hospital in the future but it could not be done at present because there was no agreed method of gathering and comparing information or rating hospitals on their performance.

“We are not in a position to do that right now because it would not be fair. Somebody who is more vigilant in detecting infection might seem to be worse than another hospital that is not so good at detection.

“Bigger, busier hospitals with more elderly or sicker patients will have more infection than quieter hospitals or maternity hospitals where patients are younger. We have to make sure the data is as fair as possible.”

Parents whose babies contracted MRSA or other antibiotic-resistant bugs in hospital, however, accused health authorities of trying to sweep the problem under the carpet.

New mother, Majella Moloney, said her baby son Jack, was only tested for infection when she returned to the Midwestern Regional Maternity Hospital in Limerick three days after discharge and insisted she was unhappy with the way the wound on his naval was healing.

“If I hadn’t made a fuss, God knows when I would have found out he had MRSA,” she said. “When I did find out, I was horrified. I knew nothing about MRSA except that people could die from it.”

Ms Moloney, from Clonlara village outside Limerick, made a complaint to the hospital which is being investigated by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The hospital is preparing an information leaflet for expectant parents, but Ms Moloney said she was disgusted that a letter she wrote to Ms Harney received a reply, saying the issues raised had nothing to do with the Department.

“It’s all so hush-hush when it comes to MRSA. I didn’t know what to do and nobody seemed to want to deal with my questions. I was given an antibiotic cream and told when to use it and when to return for swabs so we had eight weeks of that before Daniel was finally cleared last week.

“In the meantime I didn’t know what do with my other two children. I didn’t know if my husband and I needed testing. I basically hid for weeks and family and friends were afraid to come near us. The public need to be informed more but all the hospitals seem to want to do is keep it quiet.”

The information deficit on infections was not the only worry revealed as the minister published the second hospitals hygiene audit yesterday. Patients also heard from one of the top hospital managers that improving hygiene practices would not eliminate superbugs.

Dr Mary Hynes, assistant director of the HSE’s National Hospital Office, said even if hospitals were made the cleanest they possibly could be, infection rates would still only fall by about a third because a key problem was the over-use of antibiotics to which the bugs were now resistant.