More than €7.5 million has been paid out in claims by the State Claims Agency in relation to healthcare-associated infections since 2019, official figures show.
Healthcare-associated infections are infections acquired by patients during their stay in a hospital or another healthcare setting, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
They can often delay recovery, result in additional complications and sometimes result in death.
In total, €7,552,863 was paid out in relation to the issue in the past three and a half years, according to figures released in response to a parliamentary question. The figure, released to Sinn Féin’s health spokesman David Cullinane, was not broken down into how much was paid out in damages versus legal costs.
Wound infection was the infection type for which the highest amount was paid out in claims at €2,999,592, followed by MRSA, for which €1,004,479 was paid out.
While the payments were issued between 2019 and to date, they do not all relate to claims submitted during this period. The payments relate to claims made since the inception of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) in 2015.
A total of 79 claims have been made since 2019, according to the State Claims Agency.
Staff made 12 claims during that time, all of which relate to Covid-19, while members of the public or hospital visitors made seven claims since 2019, all of which related to tuberculosis.
[ 5,762 cases of hospital-acquired Covid reported between January and JulyOpens in new window ]
The remaining 60 claims were made by patients for a variety of different infection types.
Wound infection had the highest number of claims made by patients at 17, followed by MRSA at 13 and phlebitis at four, which is the medical term for the inflammation of a vein, often resulting in painful lumps beneath the skin, and darkening of the skin.
In releasing the data to Mr Cullinane, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said the State Claims Agency does not release claims’ data into the public domain at individual hospital level as it would effectively create a league table, causing the public to “draw false and unwarranted assumptions in relation to the clinical performance” of a facility.
Johan Verbruggen, an associate solicitor who specialises in medical negligence cases at Callan Tansey, said litigation around healthcare-associated infections can be “difficult”.
“It may seem that going into the hospital and contracting MRSA for example, is itself evidence of negligence but it is not that simple. A serious analysis of the medical records and any infection prevention controls that were in place has to be undertaken,” he said.
“It has to be established whether or not such protocols and procedures were followed properly. Even then, if there is evidence of mistakes or omissions, it still needs to be proved that the patient contracted MRSA or another infectious disease from exposure due to negligence in hospital, and that it was not contracted in the community, or through faultless exposure.”
The high bar to prove negligence can put many people who have contracted infections in hospital off from pursuing legal action, he added.
