Frank Feighan (Fine Gael)

Not all of us have worked in the health service. Many people have died from having contracted MRSA. I am sure there has been a cover-up in that the death certificates of people who have died from MRSA record that they died from other diseases. People have called to my constituency office expressing their concern about contracting this virus. The Government has done nothing to allay the fears of the public about the spread of this virus or to implement the necessary measures to contain it. I do not want to be political but something must be done now.

Hospital staff are very busy individuals and the staff simply leave work to go home, at which point there is no hygiene supervision in place. If they have a baby at home or cook at home, they will probably take more care sterilising a bottle or cleaning around a cooker than they take in what they do in the hospital. That is not a reflection on the hard-working staff in the hospital but on the health service. Money is being thrown at it. The attitude is there is no need to worry because nobody will pay.

If I had a shop in which there was an ice cream machine and the environmental health officer, on inspecting the premises, found hygiene standards were not being met in terms of the area around the sink, the ice cream machine or the water quality, that shop would be closed. A court injunction would be taken to close it. The prevalence of MRSA has been discussed for many years but has anybody in a senior position been sacked?