TD says he nearly died from hospital superbug

An Independent TD yesterday told the Dáil how he nearly died because of the hospital superbug MRSA.

Mr James Breen from Clare said that in March he had waited for 17 hours in a hospital in the west of Ireland for an antibiotic to save his life. "I have been told by my consultants that I will get back only 60 per cent of the use of my right arm."

Demanding to know what the Government was going to do to combat the spread of the bug which appeared to be "rampant", he said a survey showed that "in Irish hospitals this year, 55 per cent of doctors did not wash their hands between seeing patients, 35 per cent changed their white coats only once a week, and 9 per cent wore gloves only when they were examining patients".

He asked why there were no statistics available since 2002 on the incidence of infection from the bug. In 2002 some 474 people had contracted the bug. "But we have not been told how many people lost their lives as a result of contracting it. In the UK, 7,000 to 8,000 people a year lose their lives as result of contracting MRSA bug."

He asked: "Is this a health service we can be proud of? We have ploughed money into it, and have got nothing back. We have abused money."

The Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, agreed that the most appropriate way to deal with the bug was hand hygiene. She expressed her amazement that the Department of Health had to issue guidelines recently about washing hands to all those working in healthcare settings.

"It seems incredible. When I saw this in my briefing note, I had to check whether it was correct."

The chief medical officer had told her that "the most practical and sensible thing we can do to stop the spread of the bacteria in a health setting in which people are particularly vulnerable and sick is to encourage hand hygiene and the washing of hands".

The guidelines were intended to achieve this, and money was being made available to implement "best practice" on the issue.

Ms Harney said she was "genuinely sorry that Deputy Breen had this experience. I was not aware of it."

The bacterium lived "completely harmlessly on the skin and in the nose of approximately one in every three people in the country. It causes problems when it gets the opportunity to enter the body."

Mr Breen asked her to investigate how he contracted the MRSA bug. The Minister said she would certainly look into it.

The Tánaiste outlined details of the strategy launched in 2001 to deal with MRSA, including a plan to control the inappropriate use of antibiotics. About €16 million had been made available to date to implement the strategy.