Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

The Deputy has a number of questions. The survey among different countries was a sample study of some 75,000 patients, 10% of whom were Irish. It was significant that our rates were much lower. I am not boasting about that, but simply pointing out that this is not often the message we hear. The Deputy asked whether I agreed that these matters were preventable. Unfortunately, they are not. There is no such thing as an environment where people will not contract hospital-related infection. The main reason we have higher figures for MRSA now is that there is more data available. In the past this was not measured. Nowadays there is much more measurement and that will reveal the type of data that was not available in the past.

The over-prescribing of antibiotics is a crucial factor worldwide, not just in Ireland. At the last general election in Britain, Mr. Tony Blair set a target of reducing MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections by a third over an eight-year period. Many would say that is a very low target, but it is nonetheless extremely difficult to achieve because of the difficulties involved in trying to eliminate hospital-acquired infection. The most common infection acquired in hospital is a urinary tract infection. That relates mainly to people who have a catheter-related infection, with the percentage being 56.2%. A large proportion of patients with pneumonia, some 18.5%, get ventilatory-related infections and so on.

We must have a hospital and health care environment which operates to the highest possible standards of cleanliness. The hygiene audit has proven successful. Second, we should have people in every health care setting who have responsibility for infection control. The hospitals that do best are those which have some senior person in charge of this. That is why we gave the HSE additional resources this year to recruit specialist nurses and microbiologists in this area. That is the only way of having the expert staff to ensure we have an appropriate environment within the hospital.

We should have more single rooms. On my two-day visit to the United States, the big issue there and in every other country is whether we should move entirely to single-bed rooms for infection control reasons. With these, the capacity of patients to acquire an infection is minimised, particularly for very sick patients in an environment where there is much sickness and people are extremely vulnerable.

We should not be complacent as we have much to do. The HSE is having discussions with the coroner, and I will pursue the matter with my colleague, as the Deputy suggested.

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