Minister for Health Mary Harney yesterday called on health service management to review visiting hours in hospitals.
The Minister said open visiting hours were placing too much pressure on staff and patients, as well as causing hygiene difficulties.
Ms Harney said it was not desirable that visitors could arrive in hospitals to see patients from early in the morning to nine, 10 or 11 at night, and such access was not good for patients or staff.
The Tánaiste said another difficulty was visitors bringing hot food into wards. She was aware of a case in a Dublin hospital where a person had brought in a Big Mac and chips for visitors around a bed. Ms Harney also said that lengthy visiting hours could affect patients and pose difficulties for those trying to sleep.
Speaking at a national conference on hospital hygiene, Ms Harney said it was not up to the Minister for Health to tell hospitals how to set their visiting hours. But there was a question as to whether hospitals had become too open in their arrangements.
Ms Harney said she expected to see hospitals make significant progress in the forthcoming second national hygiene audit. She described as "unacceptable" the conclusions of the previous audit, which found that 91 per cent of hospitals were failing to meet acceptable standards.
Ms Harney said responsibility for hygiene had to be given to a senior staff person.
She said some staff had raised concerns with her that the issue was not being treated seriously by management. Cleanliness and hygiene had to be given top priority, and if senior people did not believe this, then they should not be working in the hospital sector, she added.
Assistant director of the National Hospitals Office Dr Mary Hynes said the second audit would take place in February and would allow the NHO and hospitals to measure their progress. The Irish Patients' Association, which organised yesterday's conference, said it had received a report of a patient who had been admitted as an emergency signing herself out of a hospital in Dublin because she was not happy with the standard of hygiene.
Chairman of the association Stephen McMahon said another report over the weekend queried why it was necessary to have a huge sign over a patient's bed with red letters "MRSA" emblazoned on it. "The person reporting it said the patient was like a leper without a bell," he said.
Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses' Organisation criticised the proposals for restrictions on visiting hours. INO general secretary Liam Doran said such a move would be unfair to patients and isolate them from family and friends. He said that to tackle the hygiene problem, issues of over-crowding and resources would have to be addressed.
