‘Name and prosecute’ hospital hygiene offenders

Hospitals that repeatedly fail to meet basic hygiene standards should face “criminal neglect” charges for putting patients’ lives at risk, with calls for doctors to be “named and shamed” over the problem.

The call came from members of the Oireachtas Health Committee during the group’s latest meeting with the Health Information Quality Authority yesterday.

Responding to the latest in a series of reports on hospital hygiene scandals published last week, public representatives across the political divide said drastic action is needed to ensure the matter is addressed.

Chief among the calls were claims the only way the long-term issue will be solved is if existing sanctions are replaced by “criminal neglect” charges and the public chastising of hygiene-failure, repeat offenders.

“You say it is inexcusable? I say it’s time to go way beyond the word ‘inexcusable’. It is in my view criminal neglect,” Sinn Féin health spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin told Hiqa chief executive Tracey Cooper, whose group’s inspections have repeatedly raised concerns over the issue.

“When you look at the statistics, one-third of staff are not compliant [with hand hygiene in hospitals].

“There is a hardcore of repeat offenders. There is a situation of criminal neglect,” he said.

The comment was supported by Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher, Labour’s Robert Dowds, and independent senator Jillian van Turnhout, who said she was “flabbergasted” by recent public responses from hospitals to the issue.

“The latest response from one hospital last week was to say they want to appoint hand hygiene champions. I was flabbergasted by that.

“These are potentially fatal consequences. And that [hand hygiene champions] is the answer? Really? I want to know who is accountable because as far as I can see no one is accountable,” she said.

While Fine Gael TD Colm Burke urged caution on starting a “witch-hunt” against particular facilities or doctors, saying finding a solution is “a team effort,” his party colleague Ciara Conway said the system is abjectly failing to resolve the problem.

Citing the recent report on Waterford Regional Hospital in her local area, which Hiqa last month said was an “immediate serious risk” to the public due to hygiene issues, Ms Conway said the problems can be solved “by what we teach a one-or two-year old child at home”.

Hiqa chief Ms Cooper said it is not legally possible to name individual staff at the centre of the hygiene problems. However, she insisted hospitals are failing to ensure patient safety.

“Hospital boards should want to know how clean their hospitals are. When people say we can’t afford it [new hygiene measures], well actually we can’t afford not to.

“If I was sitting in an emergency department with my child, if I saw someone going back and forth to patients [without washing their hands], I would not let them touch my child,” the watchdog said.

www.hiqa.ie