No improvement occurred in MRSA infection rates among patients in Irish hospitals last year, latest figures show.
Figures for hospital-acquired infections detected in 2005, released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act, also show that more than 1,200 patients were diagnosed with another infection last year which has been described by the head of the Health Service Executive, Prof Brendan Drumm, as probably "a bigger killer of people than MRSA".
This infection, known as Clostridium difficile, was found in 1,269 patients at 32 hospitals. It is an infection associated with antibiotic use, presents as diarrhoea, and can spread easily between patients. In severe forms it can lead to life-threatening complications.
The data on hospital infection rates also provides for the first time details on the actual number of MRSA bloodstream infections detected at each of the 39 hospitals across the State last year, but not all hospitals have supplied data.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre, however, disclosed yesterday that there were 592 MRSA bloodstream infections reported last year. This was 39 more than in 2004.
And the data released under the FOI Act show the hospital which reported the largest number of these cases in 2005 was St James's Hospital, which recorded 58 cases. However this is also the largest hospital in the State, treating many critically ill patients vulnerable to infection. One hospital - Dublin's Beaumont Hospital - refused to release information on its infection rates. It was the only hospital to do so.
MRSA is an antibiotic-resistant superbug and when it gets into a patient's blood through an open wound, it can result in death but there are no figures for numbers of patients who die here every year as a result of this type of infection.
At an Oireachtas Health Committee meeting earlier this year Prof Drumm said: "To give the figure of how many people died with MRSA to the public would be almost unfair and would frighten people."
The figures which have been released indicate that more than 7,600 patients, when swabbed in hospitals last year, had MRSA on their skin or were "colonised" by it. These included mainly inpatients, but in the case of some hospitals also included outpatients and patients seen in A&E.
A report released by Cork University Hospital notes that the number of MRSA isolates from its emergency department increased in 2005 compared with 2004. "This suggests that the organism is established in the community and confirms the findings of the recent literature that MRSA may now be considered as a community-based problem as well as a hospital issue," it said.
Prof Martin Cormican, president of the Irish Association of Clinical Microbiologists, said the 7,600 figure gives "a very broad indication that there is a lot of MRSA around". He added that the fact that there were 39 more MRSA bloodstream infections in 2005 than in 2004 was "evidence the problem is not getting better".
This did not surprise him, he said, as he was aware the HSE had set aside funding to recruit 52 additional infection control staff this year "as a first step" but had been told they could not recruit them because of a Government cap on recruitment in the public service.
Issues which needed to be tackled to control infection rates had been highlighted and he didn't know what more could be done to make progress, he said. "I'm honestly at my wits' end."
Meanwhile, the new figures also indicate some 452 patients tested positive in 22 hospitals last year for VRE, a superbug which forced the closure of the intensive care unit of Cavan General Hospital just a few weeks ago. Dr Kevin Kelleher, assistant national director of population health/health protection with the HSE, said there was no "quick fix" solution to hospital-acquired infections but he believed progress would be made over the next two to three years.