Hospitals accused of doing little or nothing to tackle the spread of superbugs such as MRSA may in the future be compelled by legislation to act to maintain higher standards, Minister for Heath Mary Harney has said.
If legislation were introduced it could result in hospitals being prosecuted for failing to keep proper standards.
The Minister has also indicated she wants somebody "very senior" in all hospitals to take responsibility for hygiene, which is a major factor in the spread of hospital-acquired infections. MRSA, for example, survives in dust and can be spread from one patient to another by staff failing to wash their hands.
The time may also have come, she added, for facilities to be provided for visitors to hospitals to wash their hands before entering the premises.
"In my last job [as Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment] I saw companies operate to much higher standards than operate in many of our hospitals and it's not acceptable," Ms Harney said.
She was speaking to reporters following her address to delegates attending the annual conference of the Irish College of General Practitioners in Galway on Saturday.
Asked if she would meet MRSA and Families, a new lobby group campaigning for what it calls the veil of secrecy over the spread of the potentially fatal MRSA bug in hospitals to be lifted, the Minister confirmed she would.
She added however, that she did not need them to impress on her the importance of dealing with the issue.
"I know only too well how important it is . . . one of the first things I asked Pat McLoughlin to do as the new head of the hospitals office was to deal with the hygiene issue and the audit is underway now . . . the most effective way of dealing with this issue is to encourage medical practitioners to wash their hands and I think we need to go beyond that and encourage visitors - and provide facilities for visitors - to wash their hands.
"You couldn't walk into a food plant for example the way you can walk into a hospital and it is very serious," she said.
"In fact we may well in time look at legislation in this area. I know the UK are examining bringing in legislation around standards where you mandate healthcare settings, particularly hospitals, to operate to particular standards and that's something I think that we need to give consideration to in Ireland.
"In other words that you would have legislative standards that you'd have to meet. We shouldn't have to go the route of legislation in order to have hospitals run to the highest possible standards but if it takes legislation then legislation it will be," she added.
"It is a shame that in the world of modern business higher standards are required sometimes by law but many more times because the businesses know both how they must operate in order to succeed and satisfy their customers and in many of our hospitals something as basic as hygiene is ignored," she continued.
There were around 500 cases of MRSA infections reported by hospitals last year.
The bug lives on the skin of many people without causing any problem but if it gets into the bloodstream - which it can do in patients with open wounds after surgery - it can be very painful and can even prove fatal.
Members of MRSA and families claim hospitals are far too blase about its spread and something urgent needs to be done to stop more patients becoming infected.