MRSA is "endemic" in every hospital in Ireland, a consultant microbiologist at the Mater hospital in Dublin has told an inquest.
Dr Maureen Lynch told Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday that the strain of MRSA infection that killed a Dublin man was associated in 90 per cent of cases with being a hospital-acquired infection.
Dr Lynch was called to give evidence after the inquest was adjourned in December because the coroner said it was important "in the public interest", as well as for the family, to hear expert testimony on MRSA.
Thomas Murdiff (53), Butterfield Grove, Athboy, Co Meath, died on December 14th, 2004, at the Mater hospital from sepsis brought on by MRSA. A former Evening Herald sports editor, Mr Murdiff had been in and out of hospitals over the preceding eight months with heart problems and also had to have a toe amputated.
"On the balance of probability, if not higher, this was a hospital-acquired infection," coroner Dr Brian Farrell told the inquest yesterday. He adjourned proceedings until February 28th. "I will look at all the evidence and then endeavour to make a finding."
Dr Lynch said that as MRSA was first detected when Mr Murdiff was an out-patient in the diabetes clinic at the Mater hospital and he had tested negative a month earlier at the hospital, she could not definitively agree that he acquired MRSA in hospital.
Ross Maguire, for the family, suggested yesterday that a lack of "inter-hospital communication" between the Mater public and private hospitals could have affected Mr Murdiff's fortune.
The inquest previously heard that a toe amputation was carried out on Mr Murdiff at the Mater private without doctors knowing that he had been diagnosed with MRSA at an out-patient clinic at the Mater public as the test results were not added to his file.
"If there had been this communication, events might have been different," Mr Maguire said.
This claim was strongly rejected by legal representatives for the hospitals. Martin O'Donohoe, consultant general vascular surgeon at the Mater who carried out the amputation, previously said he would have done so regardless of whether he was aware that Mr Murdiff had contracted MRSA.
Dr Lynch said that "standard procedure" for clinicians would be to attempt to "decolonise" the MRSA if aware of its existence.
She told the inquest that 30 per cent of people carry MRSA bacteria, but this does not necessarily develop into infection. While it is considered a hospital-acquired infection, "the magnitude of the problem is such that it has spilled out into the community".
Mr Murdiff's complicated medical history put him in the risk category. As well as the Mater, Mr Murdiff was a patient at Our Lady's Hospital in Navan, Co Meath. He tested positive for MRSA septicaemia at the Navan hospital a week after the toe amputation. He was rushed back to the Mater but died within a few days.