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  • Is Your MRSA Infection Due to Hospital Negligence?
22/03/2023
John Lynch
Thursday, 31 January 2013 / Published in Medical Negligence

Is Your MRSA Infection Due to Hospital Negligence?

Following recent HIQA reports, in today’s blog I will discuss medical negligence in the context of MRSA.  Medical Negligence is essentially an act or omission by a health care professional which is below the accepted standard of care and which results in injury or death to a patient.

Medical negligence can happen because of a number of reasons including:

1. Diagnosis – misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis

2. Treatment – i.e. errors in the medical treatment such as incorrect medication, surgical errors, exposure
to infection (MRSA etc)

3. Disclosure – i.e. failure to inform the patient of the risks of the treatment of procedure

Treatment – Exposure to Infection

MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) 

MRSA is a bacteria that normally lives on the skin and is generally harmless on the skin. It is different to normal Staphylococcus Aureus because it is resistant to a wide range of antibiotic drugs and so if it leads to an infection, it is very hard to fight.  When a person has a wound, the bacteria can pass from the outside of the body where they normally live to the inside where they cause a potentially dangerous infection.

Staphylococcus Aureus is not a particularly dangerous bacteria – it is to be found on about one third of the population’s skin. It only becomes dangerous if it invades a wound such as a surgical or injury wound and/or when the patient is weakened through illness. Such victims are more likely to be found in hospitals.

Infections are a relatively normal part of hospital care. It is not possible to treat patients in a completely sterile environment. Nevertheless, Irish hospitals have a very high incidence of serious hospital acquired infections and this has been attributed to poor infection control and hygiene such as poor hand-washing practice.

Legal issues that apply to hospital acquired MRSA infections 

When representing a client who has MRSA we must first establish the following:

  1. Is it a hospital acquired infection?
  2. Was the patient swabbed for infections on admission?
  3. Are there proper infection control procedures in place at the hospital?
  4. Was the patient treated properly – correct use of anti-biotics?
  5. Breach of statutory duties.

Proving Medical Negligence

There are four main steps in proving medical negligence:

  • Duty of Care – a legal duty is owed whenever a health care provider or hospital undertakes to treat a patient;
  • Breach of Duty of Care – it must be shown that the health care provider in question failed to follow the relevant standard of care;
  • Injury – the breach of duty must have caused injury and;
  • Damage – Regardless of whether or not the health care provider was negligent, there is no basis for a claim in negligence without damage, be it monetary, physical or emotional.

Legal Steps to establish a possible case or “cause of action” 

Medical negligence claims, in a similar way to personal injury claims, are made up of a series of hurdles.  If you do not clear the first hurdle you cannot move on to the next.  To establish a case in medical negligence we need to take these steps:

  • Take up copies of all medical records and check them.  In some cases we may even send them to a medical records expert for analysis;
  • Write to the doctor, health care professional or institution we believe is responsible for the injuries caused;
  • Medical experts specialising in the particular area of medicine involved will then be asked to consider whether or not the treatment received was negligent or sub-standard and if so the extent of the damage it caused.
  • If we consider that we have enough evidence to prove a case of medical negligence, then we advise starting court proceedings immediately.
  • Clinical negligence cases can be settled by negotiation without the need to proceed to a full trial but they are rarely resolved without starting court action.

Making a claim for Medical Negligence

If you, or a family member, have suffered injury due to the actions or inactions of a medical professional you may be entitled to compensation.  You will be able to discuss the facts of your situation, in detail, with a member of our medical negligence team.  As experts in the area of medical negligence litigation, we will assess your complaint and assist you in reaching a decision on whether to make the claim or at the very least investigating it further.


For further advice or if you wish to discuss any other legal area please contact [email protected] or telephone 052-6124344.

The material contained in this blog is provided for general information purposes only and does not amount to legal or other professional advice. While every care has been taken in the preparation of the information, we advise you to seek specific advice from us about any legal decision or course of action.

Tagged under: Medical Negligence

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