Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I addressed this at some length earlier this year, in the spring. The HSE has been indicating to the Government for the last year or so that it has changed its process and procedures in public hospitals with regard to MRSA. It recruited one of the international specialists in this area, an eminent person involved with the issue on the international stage, to bring our standards up to that of other countries. There is a range of well-documented reasons the problem is different on these islands than in the Netherlands, as well as other problems. I will not go into that.

The difficulty is that most of this relates to hygiene standards, and the acceptance that clinical practice has not been up to the standards it should have been. There are now officers in each of the hospitals dealing with these matters and enforcing them. There are health audits and a whole set of procedures and protocols, from washing hands to swabs, theatre treatment to gowning up. An enormous range of procedures have been put down across the hospitals.

These hygiene standards are making a significant impact, as we have seen from the audit reports. The HSE has pointed out that these practices must continue to be implemented. It concerns cleaning standards, cleaning contract standards, procedures in wards and staff such as medical teams moving from ward to ward. These issues were not implemented previously. As everybody has always known, infection can lead to contamination of one kind or another, and cross-infections can lead to death.

This does not only relate to MRSA, as there is a whole range of infections. Everybody knows MRSA, but I have heard ten or 15 infections in presentations on this issue.

The Deputy asked me about the coroner's report. It is not just a matter for the Dublin coroner but for a number of coroners to give the full extent. It is best for the coroner's report to give the facts to families. From the Government point of view, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, has tackled the issue of resources head on.

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