Re: Staff did not avail of TB follow-up, HealthSupplement, November 20th
Dear Sir,
Only those older people in our community will remember the scourge that was tuberculosis in Ireland. Dr Muiris Houston's article on how the staff of St James's Hospital did not respond to their latent TB, despite the risk to hospital patients, is but another example of the dire state of the health services.
He writes that "it is left to each health worker to accept treatment". Thirteen per cent completed the treatment!
In another part of the paper he writes that healthcare professionals are governed by a code of ethics, the most important of which is that "they do no wrong" to their patients. Then there is the matter of which we must not speak [a notification rate of 34 per cent TB in immigrants in 2005] and the first case of drug-resistant TB also in 2005.
Anthony Jordan,
Gilford Road,
Dublin 4
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