A CONSULTANT microbiologist has been appointed to St Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, following concerns raised by a coroner about the high incidence of the superbug C difficile at the facility. The consultant will take up the position in January.
A doctor on the hospital's infection control committee told Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty yesterday a range of new measures had been introduced to reduce the incidence of C difficile, including monthly meetings of a 16-member infection-control committee. The committee met on a weekly basis from May to July.
Dr Rachel Doyle said other measures include a 12-point action plan and a letter regarding hygiene, which have been circulated in the hospital, mandatory education and training of all staff, the provision of additional hand hygiene stations and almost daily meetings of the infection-control team.
Deep cleaning of rooms of patients with C difficile or MRSA is carried out, she said, while an antibiotic policy has been signed off on. She told the coroner, however, that it was too early to say whether there had been a reduction in the number of C difficile cases at the hospital.
Dr Doyle was giving evidence at Dublin County Coroner's Court yesterday, where inquests into the deaths of two patients who had C difficile when they died at St Columcille's Hospital were heard.
They were Moya Scraggs (92), of Greystones, Co Wicklow, and Thomas Byrne (83), of Arklow.
Between January and August 2007, there were 16 superbug-related deaths at the hospital.