MRSA is 'TB of modern age', committee told

The MRSA hospital superbug is killing and maiming hundreds of Irish citizens, angry victims' families told an Oireachtas committee today.

There were 315 reported cases of infections in the first six months of this year, but the number of MRSA-related deaths are not officially recorded by the health services.

Members of the Joint Committee on Health and Children today heard the stories of survivors and victims' families in a bid to draw up a national strategy to combat the superbug.

GP and radio presenter Dr Ronan Fausitt described MRSA as the TB of the modern age and called for a new position of director of hygiene and infection control to be created in each hospital.

He called for mandatory report of all cases and added: "This is not rocket science. It is a thoroughly preventable illness so why can't we get it right?"

Noeleen Friel said her son, Ronan, contracted the disease after an operation. She gathered up her cleaning utensils and spent a whole night scrubbing his filthy public ward in Tallaght General Hospital.

"It was contaminated with smeared windows, dirty floors and a soiled toilet brush. I went to the hospital bringing my cleaning supplies and gloves and spent the rest of that night cleaning that room," she said.

Former MRSA victim Tony Kavanagh said hospitals had five months' notice to get their hospitals ready for inspectors in the recent hygiene audit.

"Yet 91 per cent of hospitals failed a basic hygiene audit," he said. "This is a wake-up call. MRSA is killing and maiming citizens of this state while government, opposition parties and health service unions stand idly by, head in the stand, in denial."

Last week's first-ever audit of hygiene in Ireland's national acute hospitals found that almost half of them had poor hygiene.

Committee chairman John Moloney said he would be listening closely to the victims' experiences and suggestions and reporting back to Minister for Health Mary Harney.

PA