Nearly one fifth of patients who died after surgery in 2005 had developed an infection in hospital, it has emerged.
However, figures from the Scottish Audit of Surgical Mortality showed an improvement on those released in 2004.
A total of 126 people, 7.6% of those who died after surgery, had MRSA. In 75 of those cases, it was thought to have contributed to the patient's death.
The report pointed out that almost half of the patients with MRSA had the infection when they were admitted.
There were 301,894 surgical admissions to Scottish hospitals in 2005, with 240,302 patients having an operation.
In 17.8% of cases where the patient died after surgery, they had developed a hospital acquired infection (HAI).
This compared with 23.5% of people who died after surgery in 2004.
"Every single death is a death too many"
A total of 4,147 patients died under surgical care while in hospital and 3,698 deaths were audited.
The vast majority of fatalities, 3,132, were in cases where someone had been admitted as an emergency.
A total of 310 deaths were recorded after non-emergency admissions - an all-time low.
There were 179 cases where delays or the quality of care were thought to have contributed to the death of a patient and in 13 cases the area of concern was held to have caused the person's death.
Sir Graham Teasdale, SASM board chairman, said: "Surgical care in Scotland is remarkably safe and the number of deaths under surgical care remains very low."
He also paid tribute to "the skill and dedication" of Scotland's medical staff.
However, he said: "Every single death is a death too many.
"Mr McConnell's government is still failing to get to grips with hospital acquired infections"
"That is why we peer review deaths to examine what can be learned and how future care can be improved.
"What we have found is that where there are issues, these generally relate to problems with the system of care, such as delays in operating, rather than with the surgeons themselves."
He said that by focusing on those issues, lessons would be learned which would lower the death rate.
Shona Robison, the SNP health spokeswoman, said: "These figures clearly show that Mr McConnell's government is still failing to get to grips with hospital acquired infections.
"Clearly we need to see stronger action taken to prevent further damage to public confidence in our health service and ensure that patients get better when they go into hospital, not get worse."
She called for cleaning contracts to be returned to the public sector and patients to be screened before going into hospital.
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