County Derry Post

More than 400 people have been diagnosed with the potentially deadly MRSA bug at the Mid-Ulster and Antrim area hospitals so far this year.

By Connla Young

Connla@derrypost.com

 

Figures obtained by the County Derry Post show that 103 cases of MRSA have been recorded at the Mid Ulster Hospital in Magherafelt alone.

 

And County Derry residents who attend Antrim Area Hospital are no better off after it emerged that a staggering 321 cases of MRSA have been detected there so far this year.

 

The extent of the crisis becomes clear when the figure is compared against Altnagelvin Hospital, which recorded just 10 patient episodes of MRSA in the last financial year.

 Each year hundreds of people catch the killer bug while being treated in hospitals across Ireland and Britain.

A spokesperson for the Northern Health and Social Care Trust spoke of their losing battle to beat the deadly bug.

 

“It is not possible to determine where the patients acquired the MRSA and it is not possible to distinguish between colonisation and infection,” the spokesperson said.

 

“The Northern Health and Social Care Trust takes a proactive approach to infection control.  We have invested substantially in a MRSA screening programme using both traditional methods and new technologies in order to identify unknown MRSA carriers so that spread to other patients is prevented.

“We screen at risk patients for the carriage of MRSA (often termed colonisation) on admission.”