Lawyer Kean reveals both parents got MRSA in hospital

CELEBRITY lawyer Gerald Kean has revealed that both of his parents contracted MRSA in hospitals although it was not the cause of their deaths.

Launching a new organisation that aims to provide information about healthcare-acquired infections, Mr Kean said yesterday that he did not know much about MRSA when his parents were ill.

And, he said, had Stop Infections Now (SIN) been in existence, it would have helped his family to better understand the condition.

His mother, Patricia, who died in 2002 at 65, was in hospital for many months with emphysema when she contracted MRSA and was so ill she was unable to attend the funeral of her brother, Chief Justice Liam Hamilton.

“I genuinely did not know what MRSA was at all. It was something I had no knowledge of,” said Mr Kean.

His father, also Gerald, who had cancer and died in 2000 at 63, was not as severely infected with the hospital-acquired bug.

“Nobody explained how it was contracted, what it was, how it could be avoided. It would have helped,” said Mr Kean, who pointed out that he was not launching the organisation because he was a lawyer.

“I am not doing this from a legal perspective. But there is no excuse for these infections existing in hospitals.”

He said former health minister Michael Noonan signed off a detailed report in 1995 that carried recommendations on tackling healthcare-acquired infections but nothing was done. More reports have followed and it galled him that the problem had not been tackled.

“Everybody in this country is entitled to an equal, efficient, clean and effective health service. If we do not have that, we may as well give up.”

He said he could not accept the HSE’s claim that it was going to reduce the MRSA rate by 20% over five years.

“This is not difficult to deal with. We have the second-worst hygiene record in Europe. It’s scandalous. It is equally scandalous that we are spending €15 billion a year on our health service. If we had an efficient health service it would be run for considerably less.”

Dr Teresa Graham, a university lecturer whose husband died from a hospital-acquired infection, said people power was needed to change attitudes.

According to SIN, up to 800 people die every year from hospital-acquired infections.

“What breaks my heart is that people know what needs to be done but people are not doing it,” said Dr Graham.

A recent report from the Health Information and Quality Authority stated that all hospitals must have proper infection control systems in place. Final standards are due to be produced by the end of the year.

www.stopinfectionsnow.com.