Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

This is the time of year when many people, older people in particular, face the worry and distress of illness and hospitalisation. Is the Taoiseach aware that the fears of many of these older citizens are compounded by the further fear of acquiring hospital based infections such as MRSA? Is he aware of the concerns that exist in all communities? Last month, I raised this issue on Leaders' Questions and I make no apology for doing so again on this, the last opportunity for Leaders' Questions.

We have one of the worst rates of hospital acquired infections, especially with regard to MRSA, in Europe. I ask the Taoiseach to listen to the following statement:

I would be afraid if I had to go in for an operation now, I would think twice about it. I'd be very afraid, not on account of the competence of the doctors and the nurses, but on account of the structure they have to work under.

These are the words of a missionary priest, Fr. Brendan Forde, speaking after the funeral of his sister, Barbara, who died in Beaumont Hospital after acquiring MRSA from a routine operation. Fr. Forde continued: "She went in for an ordinary operation and she came out dead from a hospital-acquired infection, which we were told was MRSA".

Where is the Government's urgency in response to this glaring need in the hospital network? Where is the special allocation of funding for the promised additional isolation units or to ensure single units in intensive care wards? These are real needs and, since I last raised the issue of MRSA, the Cork City Coroner has followed the lead of the Dublin City Coroner by requiring all deaths attributable to MRSA to be reported to him. His decision followed a landmark inquest finding, in which it was determined that a 74 year-old man died as a result of MRSA acquired at Cork University Hospital. Will the Government now do as I urged one month ago by making it mandatory to report MRSA or other hospital acquired infections as part of the process of reporting deaths to coroners? Will the Taoiseach explain why more people are noting, as the campaigning group MRSA and Families has said, that there is a wall of silence in respect of this entire issue throughout the health services and the political establishment? What will the Taoiseach do to address this very pressing and worrying matter?

See this speech in context