C.diff families plan legal action

Clostridium difficile is a bacterium which usually lives in the intestine

The families of patients who died as a result of the Clostridium difficile outbreak at a Dunbartonshire hospital are taking legal action.

Nine people died and more than 50 were infected after an outbreak at the Vale of Leven Hospital earlier this year.

Seven families are now pursuing a case against NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has announced a review of the outbreak and said reports from the health board had given "serious cause for concern".

Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament the reports she had received suggested the hospital's surveillance system was "inadequate" and did not alert health boards to the number and pattern of cases.

Michelle Stewart, whose mother-in-law Sarah McGinty died after contracting C.diff, is the group's spokeswoman.

She said the 67-year-old had a stroke in December last year.

We need to know why this happened, it seems like such a terrible waste of life Kim McGarrity

"We were waiting on a care package to be put into place so we could take her home with us," she said.

"Then the week before she died we had been told she had C.diff.

"They had put her into a room with other people who supposedly had the infection and that's all we knew about it."

Ms Stewart said the family were given no information.

"We weren't told how contagious it was - right until the very end, our children weren't stopped from visiting, we were getting soiled clothes home and not being told how to wash it, there were no procedures put in place," she said.

"All the families we've spoken to have experienced very similar circumstances, and we're talking about cases in January until May and there was no change to the procedures in that time.

The health board said additional measures are now in place at the Vale

"A public inquiry is the only way both we and our parents and loved ones will have a voice, so that lessons can be learned and there are no more secrets or cover-ups."

Kim McGarrity's grandmother died from the infection at the age of 93.

She said: "We need to know why this happened, it seems like such a terrible waste of life.

"It took the hospital six months to realise the extent of the problem, so what kind of procedures were in place?"

Nine patients died as a direct result of the outbreak between December 2007 and June, and C.diff was also a "contributory factor" in the deaths of a further nine patients.

The health board has said that additional cleaning and strict infection control measures have since been implemented.