MRSA role could land hospitals in court
This week the MRSA and Families Network will travel to Cardiff to assess the work of Dr Ian Hosein, who is credited with cutting hospital-acquired infections in Wales by 60%.
The network’s sortie is running parallel with a complaint it has made against Waterford Regional Hospital under 60-year-old health legislation.
The case stems from its failure to stop the spread of infection and it is currently being reviewed by gardaí in Tramore, Co Waterford.
This summer, Dr Teresa Graham, who sits on the network’s central council, asked gardaí to investigate and is waiting to hear how the case can proceed.
She said: “The hospitals and the HSE know what to do but there is nobody willing to enforce this.
“The punishment under the legislation is £50, which is derisory, but it is something we want to explore.
“It is debatable how we can take this case or if a civil case can be taken under this act so at the moment I understand that the gardaí’s legal team is looking at it.”
In 2004, Dr Graham’s husband, Dermot, died while he was a patient at Waterford Regional Hospital after contracting MRSA.
Since then she feels not enough has been done to protect patients and decided to report the hospital under Section 30 of the 1947 Health Act.
This section makes it a criminal offence for a person caring for a patient with an infection not to “take every other reasonable precaution to prevent such other person from infecting others with such disease by his presence or conduct.”
Dr Graham says that inaction by the Health Service Executive has provoked a response from the Network — which is supporting her actions.
It said: “The complaint has not been made in the spirit of any vindictiveness, but because we in MRSA and Families have been experiencing such frustration.
“Over the past 13 months we have been looking for the recommendations contained in a report issued in 1995, and later repeated in reports issued in 2005. Our information is that these recommendations are implemented only spasmodically.”
The central council will now travel to visit Dr Hosein on Friday to assess his work as the Director of Infection Control charged with eliminating hospital-acquired infections. His philosophy is based on the belief that MRSA is a management and organisational problem above all else.
