One in 20 patients get infection at hospital

One in 20 patients admitted to Irish hospitals earlier this year were found to have a hospital-acquired infection, it has emerged.

Just over a third of the 50 acute hospitals surveyed had no designated infection prevention and control doctor and one hospital had no infection prevention and control nurse.

Research carried out by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre during May 2012 found 467 of 9,030 patients had a hospital acquired infection (HAI).

The rate was just over 5% across all of the hospitals.

HPSC consultant microbiologist Dr Robert Cunney said good hand hygiene practise, proper use of antibiotics and proper use of intravascular lines and urinary catheters prevented hospital-acquired infection.

“Not every HAI can be prevented from happening but every effort should be taken to prevent HAI wherever possible,” he said.

The survey was part of a study of infections and antibiotics in all EU countries.

It is not possible to directly compare the results as different hospitals may admit different types of patients and have different medical and surgical specialists.

The most common types of infections were wound infections; pneumonia; urinary tract infections; bloodstream infections and gastrointestinal infections.

The study defined a HAI as an infection that developed more than two days after a patient was admitted to a hospital or an infection that developed because of a medical device being inserted or within a defined time limit after an operation.

Patients who had a hospital acquired infection were more likely to have some of the common risk factors for developing such an infection, which include having had an operation; having a drip or bladder catheter, being in an intensive care unit, being older or very young and receiving antibiotics.

Dr Cunney said the survey found that of the 9,030 patients who were counted, 3,108 were prescribed antibiotics.

“This means that the prevalence of antibiotic use across all of the Irish hospitals was 34%,” he said.

Dr Cunney said the survey showed that antibiotic prescribing was very common in Irish hospitals.

“The results of the survey show how it is very important to make sure that antibiotic prescribing in hospitals is done properly and that antibiotics are prescribed appropriately to try and reduce the chances of antibiotic resistant bacteria emerging in our hospitals and preserve the use of antibiotics in the future.”

* www.hpsc.ie