MRSA figures tip of the iceberg, warns campaigner

MRSA figures compiled by the Government are only a fraction of the total number of cases, according to a leading campaigner in the fight against hospital superbugs.

Dr Teresa Graham, founding member of Stop Infections Now, said because only bloodstream infections of MRSA are being recorded, it is impossible to know exactly how many cases there are and she called for all MRSA cases to be collated.

Dr Graham said from her research, and what she was hearing from sufferers, wound infections, which are not notifiable, are now far outstripping bloodstream infections.

“How are we ever going to tackle the problem if we don’t know the extent of it?” she asked, adding that people are losing limbs from MRSA-bone infections.

Meanwhile, up to 2,500 cases of the superbug clostridium difficle (C Diff) occurred in Irish hospitals and residential homes last year, but there is still no national lab to monitor and identify strains of the infection.

The healthcare-associated infection (HCAI), which is steadily overtaking MRSA as the most prevalent in the country, only became a notifiable disease in May of last year.

The majority of cases reported have contained the more virulent strain of the infection, but despite recommendations from a special HPSC C Diff committee last June, that a dedicated national lab be set up, it has not materialised and specimens have to be sent abroad for testing.

In addition, a survey undertaken by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) revealed that none of the laboratories which it surveyed routinely classify C Diff strains. Only 28% did so in the event of an outbreak.

Since May of last year, hospitals have been obliged to report all cases to the HPSC with 1,581 being reported in that time frame.

But Dr Kevin Kelleher, assistant national director of population health, said on an annualised basis between 2,000 and 2,500 would have contracted the infection.

Dr Graham said hospital infections are still not taken seriously.

She said the winter vomiting bug (norovirus) which hit hospitals this winter was an indication of the lack of infection control in hospitals.

“Among international infection control practitioners, the presence of norovirus is taken as a barometer showing the capability or incapability of the hospital to prevent any hospital-acquired infection,” she said.

“The worrying thing is how apathetic we are about it.”