Published: Tuesday, 3rd June, 2008 10:15am

Killer at the Vale

by Jenny Foulds

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TWO elderly patients are now known to have died after contracting a superbug at the Vale hospital, the Reporter can exclusively reveal this week.

An 85-year-old Dumbarton woman died in January after picking up killer infection Clostridium Difficile, better known as C-diff.

The Reporter told last week how a 93-year-old woman died after picking up the same 027 strain of the bug in March.

This week the grieving relatives of both victims raised concerns regarding how infection control was handled.

They do not believe the whole story of the infection risk at the Vale is being told by health board.

And they have questioned whether 'constant under-resourcing' at the hospital, which has had a number of services stripped away, is to blame.

The son-in-law of the 85-year-old victim said: 'It is our belief that the constant under-resourcing of the Vale must surely be a factor in the events which led to my mother-in-law"s death.

'This is not intended as a reflection on NHS nursing staff or people who worked in the hospital at the time, they were working as best they could with the little resources they had."

The families want to put pressure on the health board to ensure that others never have to go through the pain they have suffered.

In both cases the families say their relative contracted the infection when they were in recovery.

The 85-year-old - who the family have asked us not to name - was recovering at the hospital after a heart attack.

The much-loved mum had been transferred to the Vale from the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) in Paisley.

According to her family she was making good progress, which initially continued at the Vale before things dramatically took a turn for the worse.

Less than five days after being diagnosed with the deadliest strain of C-diff, which elderly people are particularly prone to, the much-loved mother sadly died, on January 13.

In February, Ellen Gilda, a 93-year-old great-grandmother from O"Hare, Bonhill, was admitted to the Vale after suffering a mild stroke.

But she picked up the fatal bug and died on March 7.

For the full story read this week's Reporter