The Health Service Executive is to ask all hospitals in the State to report every three months on their progress in combating hospital-acquired infections.
The announcement came yesterday after figures published by The Irish Times showed at least 8,000 patients tested positive for a range of potentially fatal superbugs in Irish hospitals last year.
The figures were collated from data released by more than 30 hospitals to this newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act.
A further three hospitals released figures to The Irish Times yesterday on numbers of MRSA, Clostridium difficile, and VRE infections they detected in patients in 2004.
Kerry General Hospital in Tralee said it detected 537 new cases of MRSA. This includes cases where it was detected on the skin of patients or in their bloodstream, which is the most serious form of MRSA. It disclosed 180 cases were "hospital acquired".
It also had 50 patients with Clostridium difficile, a bug which was recently blamed for 12 deaths in one UK hospital since 2003. The hospital said it did not test patients for VRE.
Meanwhile, the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore said it detected MRSA in 111 patients and one member of staff last year. Two of these had MRSA in their blood.
It also had 14 cases of Clostridium difficile and one case of VRE.
And at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar, 59 cases of MRSA were identified, three of them bloodstream infections.
It too had 14 cases of Clostridium difficile, but no cases of VRE.
Meanwhile, Dublin's Mater hospital has stressed it had just 24 cases of MRSA bloodstream infections last year, not 77 as reported yesterday. This means it had fewer MRSA bloodstream infections than several other hospitals. The change in figures arises from a misprint in the information it released, which resulted in figures for MRSA and MSSA (methicillin resistant and methicillin sensitive staphylococcus aureus) being added together.
The new figures bring the total number of MRSA cases detected in 36 hospitals last year close to 7,000. Yesterday's report put them close to 6,000. The number of these which were bloodstream MRSA infections was over 500.
Reacting to the figures yesterday, the HSE in a statement said figures for MRSA infections in all hospitals should be made public. "We're going to ask hospitals to publish their MRSA figures in the coming months," it said.
It also said new guidelines for hospitals on combating hospital acquired infection would be published next month. An independent audit of hygiene in hospitals across the State, currently under way, would form the basis for change, it added.
It conceded that much more work needed to be done.
The Health Protection Surveillance Centre said hospital overcrowding was the single biggest issue which needed to be tackled to counteract the spread of hospital superbugs.
The HSE claimed the most important factor was handwashing, but it said the provision of additional beds would be "an important element of the drive to reduce the incidence of MRSA".
Patient support group MRSA and Families said the figures were higher than it had thought.
Spokeswoman Teresa Graham said her group was seeking a meeting with the newly- appointed HSE chief, Prof Brendan Drumm.
She also confirmed several firms of solicitors had clients who were in the process of suing hospitals as a result of having contracted MRSA in hospital.
Fine Gael's health spokesman, Dr Liam Twomey, called for a mandatory uniform system of infection detection and reporting for all forms of MRSA and other superbugs. He also called for an infection control inspectorate.
Editorial comment: page 15