The cavalier approach of the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive to the widespread incidence of life-threatening MRSA infections in our hospitals must change.
The seriousness of the situation was emphasised last week when the Dublin City Coroner formally requested the HSE to ensure that all hospitals share information about patients carrying the infection.
This antibiotic-resistant superbug is a potential killer if it gets into the bloodstream. As far back as 1995, it was reported to be endemic in Irish hospitals. It is also present in the community. And yet, this threat to vulnerable people is underrated, in spite of an HSE allocation of €15 million for a three-year plan. A study involving 45 hospitals published last year found one in every 200 patients either carried the MRSA infection or were being treated for it. That may not reflect the full picture. An undertaking to provide a breakdown of infection figures for the various hospitals has not been realised.
The chief executive of the HSE, Brendan Drumm, advised recently that some hospitals might not be able to function if staff members who tested positively for MRSA had to be sent home as an infection-prevention measure. That is an appalling situation. Equally unacceptable is the acute shortage of single rooms and isolation facilities for the treatment of patients who test positive for it. As things stand, they are cared for in public wards where they pose a risk to other patients.
Prof Drumm has acknowledged that the installation and use of hand-washing facilities by all staff, patients and visitors at the entrance to hospitals would represent a useful infection-prevention measure. This is not rocket science. And yet such basic preventative action is still lacking. Many hospitals are also failing to meet proper hygiene standards. And there is a shortage of infection control staff, insufficient surveillance and screening within hospitals and an excessive use of antibiotics at all levels of healthcare.
It does not have to be like this. Other European countries, such as Norway and Belgium, have devoted the necessary funding and manpower to provide for aggressive screening and robust responses. The result is a handful of MRSA cases each year, rather than the hundreds that flood through our hospitals.
The HSE is targeting a 30 per cent reduction in the incidence of MRSA in Irish hospitals over the next five years which, Prof Drumm says, can only be achieved by controlling the use of antibiotics. But we also need better hygiene, more isolation facilities and single rooms for patients. That will require investment.