This article is from page 2 of the 2006-05-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
ALMOST eight per cent of doctors practising in the West of Ireland are carrying the MRSA super bug, according to research released last week.
A study of 120 general practitioners in the HSE western region revealed that 7.7 per cent of those tested carried the MRSA in their nasal passages.
The research was carried out by the Department of Bacteriology at NUI Galway and the doctors from the GP training programme in the HSE western region and involved carrying out nasal swabs on each of the GP’s.
The results of the survey were described as “significant” by officials at the annual meeting of the Irish College of General Practitioners which took place in Galway last week. Many people, including healthcare professionals, can be carriers of the MRSA bug without showing any ill effects themselves.
The virus is normally only serious when it is transmitted through an immunocompromised procedure such as surgery. The authors said that their findings emphasise the need for high standards of infection control in primary care to prevent transmission of the bug from doctors to patients.
Meanwhile, the uptake of the Government’s new GP visit cards in Clare is significantly lower than the rest of the country, it was revealed last week. Only 710 of the new cards have been issued to date in Clare, Tipperary and Limerick, making it the lowest regional uptake in the country.
Only 12,860 of the cards have been issued nationally to date, which falls well below the Government’s target of 200,000.
The highest number of recipients were in the Cork and Kerry region where 2,633 cards have been issued. The cards allow for free GP visits for people on low incomes.
These low figures are despite attempts by Health Minister Mary Harney to relax eligibility guidelines last October.