A new study shows around 1-in-20 patients at Irish hospitals has picked up an infection during their time there.
The figure has been revealed in research carried out by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) during the month of May.
It surveyed over 9,000 patients across 50 facilities in the month.
In May this year 50 acute Irish hospitals (42 public and 8 private) participated in the voluntary pan-European study.
The survey was coordinated in Ireland by the HPSC and was carried out across all of the European Union Member States.
There were 501 hospital-acquired infections (HAI) identified in 467 patients.
Highest levels of infection
The report says the overall HAI prevalence was 5.2% with the majority occurring in patients aged 16 years (92.9%).
The overall HAI level by hospital type was highest for tertiary hospitals - 7.5% - and lowest for private hospitals at 2.5%.
Hospital infection rates were highest in augmented care units such as adult and paediatric intensive care units (ICU), neonatal intensive care units (NICU) and high dependency units (HDU)] (16.5%).
Whereas psychiatric wards and obstetrics/gynaecology wards had the lowest HAI rate at just 1.5%.
The top 4 HAI types reported were:
- Surgical site infection (91 cases; 18.2%)
- Pneumonia (86 cases; 17.2%)
- Urinary tract infection (75 cases; 15%)
- Bloodstream infection (66 cases; 13%)
Dr. Robert Cunney is a consultant microbiologist with the HPSC.
He says the level of HAIs in Ireland is in-line with European norms but there is still work to be done.
"People can be assured that hospitals are generally safe, and are becoming safer" he said.
"Now that does not mean that we can be complacent about this; there"s still room for improvement in terms of our antibiotic use, in terms of preventing infection associated with things like IV lines".
"And this is what this survey helps us to do - is to identify where we need to really focus our efforts".
"What"s really I think important with this survey is that we"re actually going out and measuring these things - and it comes down to the old adage that you can"t change what you don"t measure".
"Because we"ve done this survey, we"re able to identify where things have improved, where we"re doing well - but also identify the priorities for further improvement over the coming years" he added.
