Our research on antimicrobial resistance found that antimicrobial resistant infections cost the health service an additional €12 million in extra hospital bed days in 2019.
We undertook an analysis of the hospital costs associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at the request of the Department of Health. This work, part funded by the Health Research Board, supports Ireland’s First National Action Plan (iNAP) on Antimicrobial Resistance.
Our report estimated the costs associated with eight selected antimicrobial-resistant bacteria of public health concern. We found that over 4,700 of these resistant bacterial infections occurred across 50 public acute hospitals in Ireland in 2019.
Dr Máirín Ryan, Deputy CEO and Director of Health Technology Assessment, said: “Antimicrobial resistance places a significant burden, both health and financial, on patients, carers and families. We estimated that AMR associated with these selected bacteria resulted in almost 5,000 DALYs in patients in 2019. To put this in context, this is similar to the burden reported in Ireland for certain cancers and rheumatoid arthritis.”
“There is a need for enhanced surveillance of AMR in Ireland. Enhanced surveillance and expanded public health capacity would enable earlier identification and management of AMR threats, as well as inform investment decisions by the Department of Health and the HSE.”
There are other important resistant micro-organisms and additional costs associated with managing AMR beyond extra bed days that were not examined in this study, due to the lack of available data. The estimated €12 million is an underestimate of the total annual cost of managing all resistant infections in Ireland.
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