Madam, - Congratulations to the Irish College of General Practitioners on finding out that members of the public get most of their knowledge about the measures needed to prevent MRSA from the media! Those of us who have been involved in patient support groups have been aware of this for a number of years, and have been delighted that concerned journalist have been prepared to cover this issue.
If the ICGP investigate a bit further they will find out that the information given to patients who have acquired MRSA in hospital can be insufficient or sometimes, even now, non-existent.
The result is that there are some thousands of patients being discharged from our acute hospitals every year with MRSA (in wounds, in bones or in their respiratory systems) and very sketchy knowledge of how to treat themselves and how to prevent the spread of the infection to others.
I will give just one illustration. A male patient in one of our larger hospitals was told in March of this year that he had MRSA in his respiratory system. He was informed that, furthermore, he had it since his last period in that hospital in June of last year. In other words he was allowed home with MRSA in his lungs, and was not told of it. An additional worrying aspect of this in that in January of this year, his wife had a lump removed from her neck, his son is recovering from cancer, and his daughter has a congenital condition which means that her immune system is compromised.
This family was exposed to the risk of infection in serious life-threatening conditions because the original patient was not informed of the diagnosis, and was not told how to manage it.
In response to this appalling lack of information, patient support groups have been trying to make up the deficit.
A new group SIN (Stop Infections Now) is in the process of preparing a patient kit, which will give information about the different healthcare-acquired infections, the steps to take for prevention before going in to hospital, the questions to ask if the patient gets an infection in the hospital, and how to manage the condition on discharge in order to help the patient get better and prevent the spread in the community.
We hope that the Irish College of General Practitioners will help to distribute this kit. As we are a voluntary group, we will also be looking for suitable sponsors to help pay the costs. - Yours, etc,
Dr TERESA GRAHAM,
Meadowbrook,
Tramore,
Co Waterford.
www.stopinfectionsnow.com