Irish hospitals cleaner than English and Welsh counterparts
Irish hospitals are cleaner than those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a new survey revealed today.
A study of more than 75,000 beds showed fewer than 5% of patients in acute hospitals in Ireland suffered potentially life threatening infections while being treated.
The average across the UK and Ireland was 7.6%.
Inspectors checked for killer diseases such as the MRSA superbug, pneumonia and blood poisoning in the survey.
Dr Kevin Kelleher, assistant national director of population health with the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE), said while the results were good for the country more could be done.
"These results give a detailed picture of hospital associated infection in Ireland and allow some comparison with similar institutions in the UK,'' he said.
``The data will also allow us to focus our efforts to reduce healthcare-associated Infections and monitor the impact of our interventions.
"Without doubt there is a lot more to be done and the HSE is committed to doing all it can to reduce this rate."
The results were contained in the third prevalence survey of healthcare-associated infections in acute hospitals, carried out between February and May 2006 by the UK and Ireland based Hospital Infection Society. More detailed analysis will be published later in the year.
Between February and May 2006, infection control officers in the UK and Ireland surveyed 75,763 beds and found 7.6% of adult patients in acute hospitals to have a healthcare-associated infection.
In Ireland the overall figure was 4.9%.
Overall, 0.5% of patients surveyed had an infection where the MRSA superbug was considered the causative organism.
