James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy that more work needs to be done and that we need to reinforce continually to professionals - doctors in particular - the message on hand cleaning and hygiene. The same applies to people coming into and going out of hospitals.

The issue raised by Deputy Ó Caoláin of the reporting of MRSA, including to the patient that he or she has contracted it, is an important one. I would not stand over anything else. It should be only on a very rare occasion that that would not happen. We need to move away from defensive medicine and an unwillingness to share information. As far as I am concerned, it is for this reason we need a patient safety authority, which will be introduced on an administrative basis this year. As a doctor, my experience has been that when something goes wrong, what people want is an acknowledgement that it went wrong, an apology for it having gone wrong and an assurance that it will not happen again because change will be brought about. If they get this, they do not feel the need to go to the law. Very often, people are utterly frustrated because they do not get the information they want. Everyone then becomes defensive and the matter ends up in the hands of the legal profession. Sadly, approximately one third of what we pay out in terms of these events goes to the legal profession, which issue I want to address.

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