Facility needs extra staff and resources to combat spread of superbug in hospitals, conference told
The National MRSA Reference Laboratory, which has a key role in the State's fight against the spread of the antibiotic resistant superbug, is in "dire straits" due to lack of funding, its chief medical scientist said yesterday.
Dr Angela Rossney said the laboratory needed more staff, and more resources had to be pumped into the healthcare system by Minister for Health Mary Harney to curb the spread of MRSA.
These resources, she said, should go on "isolation facilities, sufficient staff, laboratory resources and resourcing for the National MRSA Reference Laboratory, which is in dire straits".
She said the laboratory, which is based at Dublin's St James's Hospital, looked at the strains of MRSA present in Ireland. "But we need to do a lot more work. We need to be able to do a lot more work to help hospitals investigate the isolates that are causing them problems. We need investigation work like, for example, looking at these new systems as they become available. It really is a bottomless pit," she said.
Dr Rossney, who was speaking to journalists after addressing a conference organised by the MRSA and Families Network at Trinity College Dublin, said one couldn't underestimate how serious a problem MRSA is and more needed to be done to curb its spread. "You need all the screening, you need the results as rapidly as possible, you need all the resources, you need isolation facilities, and just a lot of money needs to go into the system I think."
She said there were some rapid tests available for MRSA at present but their sensitivity had to be improved. "The more rapidly you can detect MRSA the better, the more quickly you can put control measures into operation, the more quickly patients go into isolation, the better the outcome will be," she said.
It can take up to five days for MRSA test results to become available using conventional methods, she explained. With the rapid tests, results could be available in two-and-a-half to five hours. The conference was told some patients are still not told when they have MRSA. Dr Rossney said this was strange.
MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) can be fatal if it enters the bloodstream through open wounds. Official figures indicate 587 patients were detected with MRSA in their blood in Irish hospitals last year. A number of inquests have recently returned verdicts of death as a result of MRSA infection.
Dr Betsy McCaughey, the founder of a group trying to reduce infection deaths in the US, told delegates 90 per cent of most types of hospital-acquired infections were preventable.
She said studies showed their spread could be reduced by better hand hygiene, scrupulous cleaning and identifying people coming into hospital with infection and isolating them.
She said hospitals would save money and lives in the long run by taking steps to prevent the spread of infection.
Ian Simon, a solicitor advising the MRSA and Families Network, said "a handful" of compensation claims had now been lodged in the High Court by MRSA victims but others were in the pipeline.
Former Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Hugh O'Flaherty, who chaired the conference, said it seemed solutions to prevent the spread of MRSA were available. "It may cost you money initially but in the long run it will be a great saving," he said.