Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

While the Tánaiste may find it a little facile or simplistic to raise cases in regard to health, I would like to make a point. Last Friday, The Irish Times reported that a woman named Kathleen Whiston was admitted to St. Colmcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown on 15 May 2007 with an infection for management of a diabetes problem. Ms Whiston died in the hospital two weeks later on 29 May. According to the inquest, the cause of her death was a hospital-acquired infection or C. difficile. Her daughter is quoted in The Irish Times as saying: "We certainly didn't expect my mother to have gone so soon and she wouldn't have only she got that bug". The problem is that Kathleen Whiston, God rest her, was not the only casualty of this bug. Over a seven-month period, 16 other people died in the hospital from hospital-acquired infections. C. difficile was the direct cause of death in five cases and a contributory factor in five other cases. In half of the remaining cases, MRSA was directly to blame.

Could these deaths have been prevented? The answer must be that they could have been prevented if the essential staff had been in place and proper procedure and practice followed. What really concerns people and causes them to lose confidence is that the hospital stated in October 2007 that it would discontinue the procedural policy of swabbing for MRSA all patients admitted to the hospital due to the failure to appoint a microbiologist. Five times in the past six months, the Dublin County Coroner has called for a microbiologist to be appointed. Today, almost one year after Kathleen Whiston passed away, a microbiologist has still not been appointed to St. Colmcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown, and it does not have a formal relationship with St. Vincent's Hospital. Yesterday, we heard a great deal of rhetoric about putting citizens at the centre of the public service and patients at the centre of the health service. How does a failure or inability to appoint a microbiologist over a two-year period put the patient at the centre of the health system?

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