Hospital Six Hit By Deadly C.Diff Bug

Oct 13, 04:20 AM

Current Headlines: SIX patients in Scotland were last night being treated for the C.difficile superbug.

They had been isolated in a special treatment ward at Glasgow's Victoria Infirmary.

Health chiefs said none of the patients was giving cause for concern.

C. Diff is a major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea, mainly in eldertly patients.

The outbreak at the Victoria came just 24 hours after three hospitals in Kent were rapped over the deaths of 90 patients from the bug.

The Healthcare Commission said a number of errors at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust had led to the tragedy.

A report by the commission claimed nurses were too rushed to wash their hands and left patients to lie in their own filth.

The commission began its investigation after a string of complaints about cleanliness.

Investigators became alarmed when the trust claimed no one had died from the condition despite admitting there had been hundreds of cases.

Chief investigator Nigel Ellis said: "The hospital trust didn't even pick up the first of the two outbreaks.

It wasn't aware that it was anoutbreak at the time."

Immediately after the commission report, the health and safety executive and the police both launched inquiries.

The trust's chief executive, Rose Gibb, resigned a few days before the commission report was due to be published.

Yesterday, Health Secretary Alan Johnson ordered that severance payments to her be stopped.

He said the circumstances leading to the deaths had been a "scandal".

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