MRSA Compensation

Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium found in 20-30% of the noses of normal healthy people and is also commonly found on the skin. Although it is usually harmless in these sites it can occasionally get into the body via cuts, wounds, surgical incisions and indwelling catheters and cause infections. These may be mild, causing pimples or boils, or more serious infections of the blood stream (septicaemia) bones or joints. Most strains of staphylococcus aureus are sensitive to a number of commonly prescribed antibiotics and can be effectively treated, but some are not. Those strains that are resistant to the antibiotic methicillin are referred to as MRSA.

MRSA  rarely, if ever, presents a danger to the general public. It is no more dangerous or virulent than methicillin sensitive S. aureus but is more difficult to treat. This bacterium is usually confined to hospitals and in particular to vulnerable and debilitated patients. These include patients in intensive care and burns units, and patients who have undergone surgical and orthopaedic operations. MRSA dose not generally pose any risk to hospital staff or relatives of patients unless they are suffering from a debilitating illness.

Most patients from whom MRSA is isolated are colonised with the organism rather than infected by it. This means that the bacterium is present in the nose or the skin or at the back of the throat but has not caused an infection. Such people are often referred to as "carriers". A proportion of patients carrying the organism do become infected particularly if there are risk factors present such as a surgical incision, a malignancy, a bladder catheter, a surgical drain or an intravenous cannula. Where infection is present treatment with expensive and often toxic intra -venous antibiotics, (such as vancomycin) will be required. Antibiotic treatment is not always successful and in the UK deaths in which MRSA was a factor doubled between 1999 (487) and 2003 (955). Reported cases of MRSA have increased from about 1000 in 1996 to 7000 in 2004 (Office of National Statistics)

The key to controlling MRSA is preventing the spread of the organism. Scrupulous hand washing by hospital staff before and after contact with patients and before any procedure is the single most important infection control measure. Patients with MRSA should be physically isolated from those who are not infected.

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