Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 225: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the progress in implementing the recommendations of the Health Service Executive's recent report into the incidents of C. difficile at Ennis General Hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21379/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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I consider the findings of the recent report of the review carried out by the HSE into an outbreak of C. difficile at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Ennis to be a serious matter and I would like to express my sympathy to any patient and/or family who was affected by the outbreak.

I have been informed by the HSE that most of the recommendations in the report have already been implemented and the HSE will continue to monitor their implementation so as to ensure that the incidence of HCAIs is reduced to an absolute minimum and, particularly, that significant outbreaks such as this do not occur again.

The recommendation that the Department make C. difficile a notifiable disease has been acted upon and the Chief Medical Officer has instructed the HSE in this regard. Since 4th May 2008, this infection became a notifiable disease under the Acute Infectious Gastroenteritis category and from that date all cases are required to be notified to the relevant Department of Public Health.

Guidelines for the Surveillance, Management and Control of C. difficile-associated disease were published on 22nd May by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre in the HSE. They give national guidance and deal with the isolation of C. difficile ribotype 027 for the first time in Irish hospitals. They will be a valuable resource in assisting in the prevention, management and control of this infectious disease.