LABOUR LEADER Eamon Gilmore claimed that hospital infections had become "an epidemic" when challenging Tánaiste Brian Cowen on the demand for a consultant microbiologist in a Dublin hospital.
Mr Gilmore said that a HSE report last year had concluded that one in every 20 people admitted to hospital ended up with a hospital-related infection.
"That is 30,000 a year, 600 a week, over 80 people a day getting hospital infections. That is an epidemic."
Mr Gilmore said that hospital staff had sought help.
"One common thread running through all of this is that the medical people in the hospitals flagged the problem some time ago and went looking for help.
"They did so in Ennis, Co Clare. The consultant, Mr Hennessy, said that it was a result of overcrowding in the wards and looked for help on that front.
"In Loughlinstown, Dublin, on five different occasions, the medical consultants in the hospital, and the medical staff, for whom I have enormous respect, said that they wanted a consultant microbiologist."
He added that the coroner, who had examined the matter over a six-month period, repeatedly supported the call for such an appointment.
"The problem they have in Loughlinstown is that they cannot do the swabs because of the absence of a consultant microbiologist."
Mr Gilmore said said that the county coroner was examining 16 deaths, five of which were caused by infection. In the case of another five, infection was a contributory factor.
He added that Loughlinstown hospital was not the only example.
"We are talking here about people dying. People go to hospital to get cured, not to get killed."
Mr Cowen said it had been stated that there was a significant improvement in the situation in Loughlinstown hospital.
The suggestion had been made, he said, that if there was a microbiologist in a hospital, there were no infections.
"That is not the situation." Currently, he said, there was a "shared" microbiologist position between St Vincent's and Loughlinstown hospitals.
There were hospital infections in hospitals where there were microbiologists, said Mr Cowen.
"The main point I am trying to make is this: for example, in Ennis, where there has been a very significant improvement, it was not on the basis of a presence or absence of a microbiologist.
"It was on the basis of a proactive series of steps taken which have improved the basic hygiene issues in that hospital to an extent where they can now measure or reduce the incidence of infection," the Tánaiste said.
Mr Cowen said that while there was an argument that there should be more microbiologists in the health system, the conclusion could not be made that their presence or absence determined whether the level of infection was reduced or not.
Earlier, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said that a report in The Irish Times had referred to the admission of a patient to Loughlinstown hospital in May 2007 for the management of a diabetes problem, with an infection.
She had died there two weeks later due, according to an inquest, to a hospital-acquired infection. In the same hospital, over a seven-month period, 16 other people died of hospital-acquired infections.
"The question has to be asked: could these deaths have been prevented?
"The answer is that, yes, they could have been prevented if the essential staff and the proper procedure and practice had been followed."
On Monday, said Mr Kenny, there had been a great deal of rhetoric about the health service and the public service and putting patients at the centre of things.
Mr Cowen said that the current Minister for Health, Mary Harney, had brought forward a systematic approach to the whole issue.
