Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THERE HAS BEEN a 42% increase in the number of new patients detected with a bacteria that can resist antibiotics.
Called Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), the National Public Health Emergency Team has published its first situational analysis report that says there been 401 new cases found this year. That’s compared to 282 in 2016.
The NPHET is not sure if this because of enhanced screening procedures or an actual increase in the number of people with CPE.
In October, Health Minister Simon Harris declared that the CPE superbug is a public health emergency.
What is CPE?
Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae is the newest superbug that is difficult to kill with antibiotics and pose particular problems in hospital environments.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) say that CPE is a serious threat to patient safety due to its resistance of medicines, meaning there are very few options to treat it.
More than half of all patients who develop blood stream infections with CPE die as a result of their infection.
The HSE’s National CPE Action Plan says inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics, understaffing and overcrowding in hospitals and other healthcare settings, and lack of adherence to standard infection prevention and control practices are some of the factors in the increase in CPE reportings.
Inadequate screening procedures and shortage of infection control specialists are also contributing factors.
Taskforce
A National CPE Response Team was established in May this year to work with hospitals and other healthcare providers to combat the rise.
The HSE says there is a variation in the implementation of the National CPE Screening Policy across hospital groups and individual hospitals, with a push to place CPE on a list of notifiable diseases.
The groups will gather data to understand why more patients might be infected with the bacteria, looking at hospitals, nursing homes and long-care facilities.
This will assist with the main gaps they are facing as many relate to requirements for the reporting of CPE colonisation and the implementation of national requirements for screening in acute hospitals.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Aodhan was asked on RTÉ radio if he would welcome such a centre in Clontarf where he lives. In a roundabout way the answer was no and he believes it is for other areas to deal with this.
@Michael McLoughlin:
Car break ins, assaults, drug dealing increase in areas adjacent to injection and methadone centres.
Send all drug users to a remote Island and give them as much drugs as they want.
They’ve opted out of society. We owe them nothing.
@m flynsk: is it not society doesn’t want them?plus your way of thinking and typing belongs in the Stone Age get a book and educate yourself,these people never got up one day and thought ahh hay I’ll be a heroine addict(all drug users) that you say could you explain that part a bit better because it makes you sound an uneducated Fool!
Put it beside your house then. Dublin 8 is already all of Dublin’s drug users dumping ground. Each community should be responsible for their own. We have enough centres, hostels, needle exchanges etc. All within a 10 minute walk of each other.
@Thomas Quinn: Problem is – the majority of people who use drugs are located in inner city areas, or at least frequent there. They are not out in great numbers in Sutton or Dundrum. I’d be happy with smaller sites dotted around the city but that’s probably not economical. It was supposed to be a pilot. DCC should have at least piloted it. If it worked -hooray. If it didn’t, halt it.
@Annie Citric: We have to move from Dublin 8 next year because it is so bad now already. Guardai do not stop or search anyone within a radius of these charity or government hostels/needle exhanges or drug clinics and with so many in the area that means dealers walk around with impunity. 5 guys deal openly opposite the late night centre and carry blades and bat’s intimidating people openly and St Patrick’s Park is filled with the walking dead. I have removed needles close by were my daughter plays. I have a solution for these centres. Prison. Lock them up and give them free heroin in supervision. If they want to get clean provide the support and weaning off service there too along with job support upon release. Enough is enough.
@Annie Citric: Unless you’ve done a census on IV drug users and their home addresses that’s a guess at best. There is a cohort of city centre dwelling addicts but there are a considerable amount who use their free passes on public transport to travel into the city centre each day because that’s where the “treatment” centres and homeless shelters are. Time to move them into the localities where these people actually come from instead of constantly drawing them into The D1/D2/D8 areas. Maybe then ordinary decent taxpaying workers can enjoy the city centre, and maybe the city will get a chance to become a more family friendly place, instead of something resembling a set from the walking dead.
@Annie Citric: The users travel to those places to get their drugs they are fro all over the country and for all backgrounds
@Annie Citric: how would you like to see an injection centre put on the doorstep of your children’s school, having to have the blinds closed because of the sightings they have to see day in and day out. That centre will only attract more dealers and more addicts. They need help to come off drugs not keeping them on it.
The failed labour minister backs another loser.
The city council listened to the local community and said NO.
Drug users bring crime, anti social behaviour and violence and to create a Walking dead zombie farm, where stoned, out of their heads, criminals can bring heroin, that they bought illegally with the proceeds of a criminal act and shoot up at the Tax payers expense. GET A GRIP.. It wouldn’t help on of them become clean.
Hopefully now D1 and D2 get cleaned up and the stoned Zombies destroing the city are removed.
Well done DCC and the Hug a thug brigade can go to hell
@Mark Mccormack: I lived around the corner from one in Brisbane and it was grand. There was never an issue. This has worked in other countries. A pilot scheme is worth a shot.
@Ned Flanders: live not too far from there myself. It does work, it works in Portugal, it works in the Netherlands. Addiction is a side effect of social isolation and a lack of purpose. These centres solve these root causes and the addiction fades in many cases. If we elevate the lowest in society we improve society.
Today’s goverment only approve popular decisions..vote hunting
Merchants Quay ( Franciscan Order) own a massive nursing home (Assisi House) on the Navan Rd beside the Papal Nuncio. Its where they keep there most prolific sex offender Ronald Bennet. That could be used as an injecting centre ? On all the bus routes and near the city centre.
@Jim Lahy: Grafton st is an excellent choice for the centre, Luas and plenty of buses there so addicts can travel hassle free for treatment.
@Niall O’Neill: Except for the people who use those very heavily used services and we have enough addicts of our own thanks all the same
Bit of a shame, that. Pity these poor souls couldn’t be given free drugs to be taken out of their misery and the dealers out of business.
An injecting centre??? Would it not make more sense to get people off drugs than offer them a legal place to take them?? It appears to me that injecting centres are the first step to make drug taking socially acceptable.
@Michael MC Evoy: I don’t think taking heroin is ever going to be accepted by society. It will never ever be gotten rid of either. The only thing that can be done is at least try and reduce the harm caused and save lives.
Why can these facilities not be placed in local existing hospitals throughout the city ? Taking new build units into the community is of course going to cause concern. These are drug addiction units and as such a hospital is the best place for them .
There remains a dire need to address & prevent the shooting up & user debris in public areas.
Surely there is a simpler way by fitting out mobile dispensary units to cater for 4 or 6 per session, so that there is no need to congregate all users to 1 place.
Am not impressed that these users are expected to purchase their own gear, thus continuing the criminal connection & influence. This gear not alone is illegal, but is potentially lethal.
Cannot the seized gear be quality & safety tested for use in such mobile units?
have your say