Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

What steps has the Minister taken to ensure the implementation of the recommendations of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre concerning the monitoring and control of MRSA and C. difficile? Among the recommendations is the provision of single-room isolation units for people who have been identified with C. difficile. There is a need to ensure that all health care workers should go through a mandatory introduction to infection control. There is also a need to ensure the proper monitoring of antibiotic prescriptions.

What steps has the Minister taken following the recommendations of the HPSC? Has she noted that the HPSC has also highlighted the lack of a specialist laboratory to determine the type of C. difficile? It is not a single threat as there are a number of different types. What steps are we taking to ensure that we have that laboratory expertise located here at home? There have been closures of several laboratories at a number of hospitals around the country and the HPSC's recommendation seems to fly in the face of what the Minister has been doing heretofore. Is she prepared to abandon that position and put in place proper laboratories that will give that critical service to our acute hospital system?

I listened to the Minister's comments on overcrowding I offer no apology for going back to a home base in relation to this. We are on the eve of what is proposed to be the transfer of all the remaining acute medical services at Monaghan General Hospital to Cavan General Hospital, which has been signalled to take place before the end of next month. How can the Minister rationalise what she said earlier about the challenges of overcrowding and hospital acquired infections with a proposal to displace 3,000 medical inpatient admissions annually to a hospital site that already has a 160% bed occupancy level? Surely, by any standard, this is an impossible project and it is placing people in ever greater danger, not only due to the increased possibility of contracting C. difficile, MRSA and all the other hospital acquired infections, but also because there is a raft of other health concerns. Surely we should not proceed with this under these circumstances.

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