It could have bought better, dedicated facilities for cystic fibrosis patients. It could have opened quite a few geriatric step-down services for older people, freeing up scarce public hospital beds. It could have provided quite a few MRI scanners so badly needed for patients with neurological disorders. It could have. . . it could have. . .

But if there is one investment that needs to be made which would affect the entire health service and which would save money in the long run, it's in how we manage Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as the antibiotic resistant superbug, MRSA.

The largely hospital-acquired infection, diagnosed in 587 patients last year alone, was the focus of a major conference organised last week by the MRSA and Families Network, the people whose lives have been ruined by the infection which has the capacity to kill and disable.

That conference heard of our atrocious record:

laboratory facilities that are understaffed and without vital equipment to make the speedy diagnosis necessary to contain the infection; poor hygiene practices; overcrowded wards which dictate that beds used by patients infected with MRSA are turned around too quickly; a lack of isolation facilities once it is detected.

Our record is atrocious. A Dutch specialist told how the infection is virtually screened out of the system there. Every patient who contracts the disease is isolated immediately. The family are informed as a matter of urgency. The ward where the infection is discovered is immediately decontaminated.

Compare that with here, where visitors are allowed to wander willy nilly through wards at any time of the day. Cleaning is less than acceptable in many hospitals, but money for improvements is not forthcoming . . . Holles Street hospital wanted extra funding to improve hygiene but was turned down by the HSE. The warning is that MRSA may move into the community where it will be much harder to contain and will devastate even more families. The problem is complex, but investment in good practice, an up-to-date laboratory and more isolation wards is vital.