Mary Henry (Independent)

I thank Senator Glynn for his kind words on exactly the area I wish to address. I welcome the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, to the House. I have frequently heard her speak on this issue and am well aware that she realises its seriousness. Florence Nightingale said that when the sick enter hospital, they should not become sicker as a result. We have got into an unfortunate situation where people going into hospital are very afraid that they will become infected by antibiotic resistant bacteria and that it will be the end of them. However, thanks to my friend, Dr. Fred Faulkner, the chief microbiologist at St. James's Hospital, I have a report from the standing medical advisory committee to the Department of Health in London. It was written in 1959 and addresses staphylococcal infections in hospitals and antibiotic resistance. We are not dealing with a new problem but with one that has now got seriously out of hand.

If the Minister read this report, she would find that many of the summary conclusions and recommendations are exactly the same as our own. The first is that the control of staphylococcal disease depends largely on the application of aseptic methods, in other words, cleaning up. The use of antibiotics, either for treatment or for prophylaxis, is by itself unreliable. We have a terrible idea nowadays that there is a pill for every ill and that we can solve everything that way. The area I wish to address is the seventh recommendation, namely, that in all suspected cases of staphylococcal disease, it is desirable to confirm the diagnosis by bacteriological investigation. We have not put enough emphasis or exerted enough effort on this situation.

Initially we had bacteria resistant to one antibiotic. MRSA initially stood for methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. However, MRSA rapidly became multiply resistant staphylococcus aureus, and the current situation is that we have not just staphylococcus aureus but many other bacteria resistant to the most common antibiotics, with nothing else coming down the line to take over from them.

Bacteria have been here for billions of years. They are far more successful than human beings, who have been around only for a few million years.