Fairyland ward to re-open after MRSA scare

Patients will start being admitted again to the Fairyland ward at St Luke's Hospital on Sunday after operations were cancelled when three cases of the antibiotic-resistant MRSA bug were encountered in the hospital's only pediatric surgery ward over the last couple of weeks.

Emergency admissions carried on but planned ones were cancelled in a precautionary measure.

Results from tests yesterday allayed worries that the bug was spreading from the hospital and showed that it had been introduced by patients from the community, Fairyland's consultant pediatric surgeon Chris Fearne said.

"We wanted to know if someone, or something was causing an MRSA epidemic, but the results showed that the cases were completely separate and that the MRSA was not contracted in the hospital," he explained.

MRSA is a bug that is found in two per cent of the population and usually does not cause problems to the carriers unless it goes through a cut in the skin where it could cause boils and other skin infections, Mr Fearne said.

He said it was sheer coincidence that three cases were admitted to Fairyland over the last couple of weeks.

Although it was known that two per cent of the elderly had MRSA, as yet, there were no statistics for children in Malta, the surgeon pointed out.

Together with the Infection Control Unit, guided by its consultant Michael Borg and microbiologist Paul Cuschieri, Mr Fearne is working on a study to find out how many children are MRSA carriers.

Results, which were important to have, were expected by the end of the year, he said.

If it transpired that a high percentage (two to three per cent) of children were carriers, a screening programme would be set up before they were admitted to Fairyland.

A number of non-urgent operations were called off over the last couple of weeks and re-scheduled. The hospital administration had warned on Wednesday that more operations may have to be cancelled, but this did not transpire.

Over 250 cases of MRSA were registered in Malta in the first six months of the year, with the majority, 191, being seen at St Luke's Hospital. The other 63 cases of MRSA were reported in other hospitals and clinics.

An EU-wide survey had given Malta and 12 other countries a "not-so-good" ranking when it comes to controlling the risk of MRSA, which has become widespread in hospitals in the UK and other countries.