Madam, - I read the quotes ascribed to Prof Martin Cormican about MRSA in your health supplement (October 21st) with mounting incredulity. May I address just three points.
One: Prof Cormican discounts any threat posed by the presence of MRSA in the community.
This is exactly the attitude which persisted about the infection in hospitals over the last 30 years, and has allowed the problem of healthcare-acquired infections grow to the extent that MRSA and C Dif-associated illnesses are endemic in most of our public hospitals.
I am sure that Prof Cormican is reading the same research from the US that I am which details the problems in schools and gyms caused by MRSA infections.
And, by the way, how does an eminent scientist get away with such an imprecise description as MRSA being "everywhere in the community"? It is demonstrably not.
Two: Prof Cormican said that MRSA was never the cause of death. He is correct in the sense that nobody dies from bullets either, unless they are discharged at high velocity from a weapon and enter a vital organ.
I have sat through enough coroners inquests now to know that many people (and we will never know exactly how many) die from bloodstream infections and organ failure caused by the MRSA bacteria.
Three: The professor is correct about the stigma which arises as a result of MRSA infection diagnosis.
Unfortunately, the majority of this stigma occurs in the hospitals where the practice is to attach a yellow sticker to the outside of an infected patient's file so that the fact is announced to the public. The lack of information about such infections is caused by the reluctance of physicians and other health practitioners to discuss the matter with the patient or the family of the patient.
As a recent survey by the College of General Practitioners showed, the knowledge that the public has about MRSA is gleaned from the media and organisations such as our own.
Obviously, this situation will have to continue if Prof Cormican has his way. - Yours, etc,
TERESA GRAHAM,
Stop Infections Now (SIN) Campaign,
Meadowbrook,
Tramore,
Co Waterford.