The mattresses on hospital beds can harbour MRSA infection and should therefore be disinfected on a routine basis between patients, an infection control nurse at a Dublin hospital said yesterday.
Eilish Creamer was speaking at the National Council for the Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery where she presented a survey on the level of MRSA found in mattresses in one hospital.
She said that even though mattresses at the Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital in Dublin were washed with water/detergent routinely between patients, one of a total of 27 mattresses screened for her study still had traces of MRSA.
After the mattress was disinfected using a special solution and rescreened, the bug was gone.
The mattress with the bug was not in use at the time of the study and no transmission to patients was identified as a result of the contamination, she said.
"While this was a very small survey the isolation of MRSA from an unoccupied mattress was of concern as transmission could occur later to a patient undergoing elective eye surgery or another at risk patient," she said in her report.
"It is imperative that mattresses should be free of MRSA if transmission is to be prevented.
"On the basis of 12,000 hospital beds nationally, it could be predicted that many mattresses in Irish hospitals are currently contaminated with MRSA and there is likely a greater risk in hospitals where MRSA is endemic.
"Along with hand hygiene and other MRSA control measures, mattress hygiene should be studied further and prioritised as a local and national initiative in the prevention and control of MRSA," she added.
Ms Creamer said that in Scandinavia beds were put through a disinfection process after every patient and the region had lower rates of MRSA infection.