Hospitals with most MRSA deaths are revealed in study

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

The new strain of MRSA affects healthy people

The hospitals with record numbers of deaths linked to the superbugs MRSA and Clostridium difficile were named and shamed yesterday.

The Office for National Statistics figures showed where the people who contracted the infectious and deadly bugs died between 2002 and 2006.

At the Royal United hospital in Bath, 268 people who died had C. diff recorded on their death certificates – more than 3 per cent of all deaths at the hospital over the four years.

Some 235 people with C. diff died at the George Eliot hospital in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, representing more than 3 per cent of deaths at the unit.

The figures do not take into account the number of patients treated, and do not represent deaths from C. diff or MRSA, but show only that it was mentioned on the death certificate. Nor do they show where the infection was picked up.

Some 218 institutions are included in the figures – 217 hospitals and one hospice – which record the location of deaths at "communal establishments". The figures record places where more than 2,500 people died from any cause.

Walsgrave hospital in Coventry, Leicester Royal Infirmary and Kettering general hospital recorded 233, 203 and 200 deaths from the bug respectively. Meanwhile, Derriford hospital in Plymouth had the highest number of MRSA deaths – 94 – followed by the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth with 81, Maelor hospital in Wrexham with 79, Musgrove Park hospital in Taunton with 77 and the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton with 75.

A spokesman for Help the Aged expressed concern at the figures saying: "Any rise in hospital-acquired infections will affect older people more heavily."

Original here