By Paddy Clancy

MRSA, the superbug which can kill, is “endemic” in hospitals throughout Ireland, according to an eminent expert.

Dr. Maureen Lynch, a consultant microbiologist at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, said the strain of the bug that killed a former newspaper editor was associated in 90% of cases with being a hospital-acquired infection.

Dr. Lynch was giving evidence at an inquest into the cause of the death of 53-year-old Tommy Murdiff, a sports editor with the Evening Herald in Dublin.

She was invited to give evidence after the city coroner Dr. Brian Farrell adjourned the inquiry in December. He said at the time that it was important in the public interest as well as for the Murdiff family to hear expert testimony on MRSA.

Murdiff died two years ago at the Mater Hospital from sepsis brought on by MRSA. He had been in and out of hospitals over the previous eight months with a heart condition and also to have a toe amputated.

Doctors who carried out the amputation were not told he had been diagnosed with MRSA at an outpatient clinic as the results were not added to his medical file.

Dr. Lynch said at the resumed inquest on Monday that as MRSA was first detected when Murdiff was an out-patient in the diabetes clinic at the Mater, and he had tested negative a month earlier at the hospital, she could not definitely agree that he acquired the bug in the hospital.

She said that “standard procedure” for clinicians would be to attempt to “decolonize” the MRSA if aware of its existence.

She told the coroner that 30% of people carry MRSA bacteria, but this does not necessarily develop into infection.

While it was considered a hospital-acquired infection, the magnitude of the problem was such that it has spilled out into the community.

The coroner said his early belief was “on the balance of probability, if not higher, this was a hospital-acquired infection.”

But he said he wouldn’t deliver a formal decision for three weeks. He added, “I will look at all the evidence and then endeavor to make a finding.”