MRSA sufferers and their families have called for a new rapid screening machine, which can detect the disease within two hours, to be made available in all acute hospitals on admission.
The infection can leave patients seriously ill with permanent health effects and can sometimes be fatal. The MRSA and Families Group said measures were urgently required to reduce the spread of the infection in Irish hospitals.
They made the call for rapid screening yesterday after overcrowding in A&E departments reached record levels last week which the families said was an ideal environment for the spread of such infections.
Margaret Dawson, group founder, whose husband Joe has had to deal with the effects of severe MRSA infection, said the new rapid screening test would detect the disease within two hours. "Lives can be saved and untold human misery can be prevented if MRSA is detected when patients are admitted to hospital," Ms Dawson said.
What normally happened was that by the time the patient was tested, they had probably had a surgical procedure and been returned to a ward so the infection spread.
"We welcome the development of this rapid screening test for MRSA," Ms Dawson added. "We call on the Minister for Health Mary Harney and the HSE to implement screening for MRSA for all admissions to acute hospitals without further delay and to publish the data on a regular basis."
Some members of the group had met Ms Harney before Christmas.
Ms Dawson said she founded the group because her family, like so many others, were not told her husband had the infection. He had surgery and his wound did not heal for nearly a year.
"MRSA has taken a father and husband from our family," she said. "Joe is on very strong pain-killers and is in and out of hospital all the time."
If there had been a screening machine, they could have found out straight away.
"Patients and families need to be told. When it comes to MRSA, its a wall of silence."
Hospitals wanted to send patients with MRSA home. If there was a death related to MRSA, then it was not on the death certificate. It was also not in hospital discharge letters to GPs. This was also happening where people were going out into nursing homes, she said.
Tony Kavanagh, who contracted MRSA after a leg operation in a Dublin hospital and nearly died, said: "The best disinfectant is action and knowledge."
Joe Mayne from Biofact which produces the machine, said it cost €45,000 and €25 for each patient for the test. The machine could also detect the winter vomiting bug and other infections and possibly bird flu. In 2005, there were more than 6,000 MRSA cases in 30 Irish hospitals.