Woman claims families left in dark over killer bug

NHS board ‘kept quiet’ over C diff outbreak

By April Mitchinson

Published:

A health board was under fire last night for keeping quiet about a Clostridium difficile outbreak at a hospital ward where five people died.

A Dundee woman whose mother was admitted to ward 31 in the city’s Ninewells Hospital after cases of C diff had been discovered accused NHS Tayside of keeping families “in the dark”.

Pensioner Gladys Storrier, 75, died on Friday after being admitted to the ward on October 19 for treatment to her bowel.

Her daughter, Gwen Storrier, said the family was not told there was C diff in the ward, despite it already being known by the authority the infection was present.

Ms Storrier believes her mother contracted the infection, which led to her death, at the hospital.

She said: “My mum went in with a hole in her bowel and they were treating that and trying various alternatives.

“We knew it was going to be a long process, but then she contracted the bug. She died on November 6 and there had been two deaths the weekend before that. They had been in separate, single rooms in the ward to keep them away from the other patients. The death certificate said she died of pneumonia first, the hole in her bowel second then the bug third.”

Ms Storrier added: “A nurse told me she would have lived a lot longer if they kept her tubes in and kept up the treatment. I feel she would have lived for months.

“If we’d known that bug was in that ward seven weeks before she went in we could have made a decision on that. They only told us when she contracted it and then she died.”

According to an official timeline released by NHS Tayside, the outbreak in ward 31 was declared on October 19 following confirmation of at least three separate C diff cases in a 30-day period. The health board notified the Scottish Government of the outbreak on October 21, but the public was only made aware of the situation on Tuesday.

All five deaths were over an 18-day period between October 19 and November 6. However, a retrospective review by microbiologists determined that a case in September should be included in the outbreak.

The most recent death linked to the infection was on Friday in ward 31, which is a medicine for the elderly ward caring for people who are mostly in their 80s and 90s.

C diff was directly responsible for two deaths and was a contributory factor in three. Another three patients contracted the infection and are receiving treatment. Seven of the eight patients had the “particularly nasty” 027 strain which is resistant to many antibiotics.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “At all times, NHS Tayside kept patients and their relatives fully informed.”

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon is due to make an emergency statement to the Scottish Parliament today. However, she has confirmed there are no plans for a public inquiry into the deaths.