By Sarah Slater
A hospital ward catering for older people has been closed to new admissions due to a superbug.
Several patients in St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny were found to have been hit by the antibiotic resistant bug known as CPE
Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacterales are bacteria that live in the gut. The bacteria are resistant to many antibiotics. This means that some antibiotics that were used to treat them no longer work very well.
The hospital caters for a population of 156,000 from Carlow, Kilkenny and parts of Laois and Tipperary.
The Geriatric Emergency Medicine Service (GEMS) ward has now been closed to new admissions. Full infection prevention and control precautions are in place in line with the national guidelines.
Screening programme
The Ireland East Hospital Group (IEHG) has said that St Luke’s has fully implemented the National HCAI AMR Taskforce recommendations for screening to detect patients with CPE.
In a statement the hospital group said the affected patients were identified due to implementation of the national CPE screening programme:
“The infection prevention and control team continue to work with staff to ensure best practice is followed in line with Hospital Infection Control Policy and national best practice guidelines for management of CPE.
"The Infection Prevention and Control Team has an ongoing surveillance programme for identifying patients colonised or infected with resistant micro-organisms.
"The surveillance programme was successful in identifying the patients, allowing for prompt action by the infection control team and ward staff in line with Hospital Infection Control Policy and national and international best practice guidelines in this area."
“Incidents and trends in infections are monitored and discussed on a monthly basis at the Hospital’s Quality and Patient Safety Committee and at IEHG Group level.”
Last week visitors were being advised to only attend the hospital Emergency Department if absolutely necessary due to being extremely busy.
