THREE BABIES tested positive for MRSA infection at Letterkenny General Hospital over the past two weeks, the Health Service Executive has confirmed.
The HSE said yesterday as far as it was aware the cases have no link to any previous case. “The hospital has informed the families and GPs of the babies concerned, and the infection control nurses and public health nurses are in contact with them and will provide any advice and information they need,” it said in a statement.
MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, is an antibiotic-resistant superbug which can be fatal if it gets into the bloodstream. The HSE refused to say whether the babies in Letterkenny hospital had MRSA on their skin or in their bloodstream. It said it could not say because “we cannot comment on individual cases”.
The executive said that a number of measures had been taken to curb the spread of the infection, including specialist cleaning, followed by testing of areas within the maternity unit to seek to ensure that they were free of MRSA, as well as screening of patients and staff in the unit.
“This screening programme is continuing and we are confident that we have taken all measures that we need to and that are appropriate to help minimise the risk of further cases. From time to time a baby may test positive for MRSA. As far as we are aware, these current cases have no link to any previous case,” the HSE said.
Dr Michael Mulherin, a consultant microbiologist at the hospital, said that staff had followed national and local best practice infection control guidelines to deal with the issue.
Rosemary Cassidy, of the MRSA and Families support group in Donegal, said that the measures now being put in place to prevent the infection from spreading should be in place all the time.
She said that the mother of one of the three babies had gone home with no information on how to stop the infection from spreading to her other three children. This was now being addressed.
A report last week from the national Health Protection Surveillance Centre showed that 10 cases of MRSA bloodstream infection had been reported at the Letterkenny hospital in the first six months of this year.