Health: Fitt tells of anguish at deadly infection

A SENIOR peer whose wife died of an infection increasingly found in hospitals urged the Government last night to tackle the "major threat to public health" caused by bugs that are becoming resistant to antibiotics.

The former SDLP leader Lord Fitt made his appeal in a Lords debate on the report of the science and technology committee, Resistance to Antibiotics, which warned there was no room for complacency on the issue.

The crossbench peer urged ministers "to try to bring about infection control in hospitals", adding: "I don't believe a lack of finance should be the reason for preventing that."

Lord Fitt's wife, Ann, died two years ago from MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, "an awful scourge" which he said she caught in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital when she went in to change the medication she took for her asthma condition.

Describing his anguish at having agreed to her going into hospital, Lord Fitt told peers: "I feel very guilty and will feel guilty to my dying day ...

"I agreed. I said yes - I thoroughly regret having agreed."

He said they had been married for 48 years. "MRSA has had a devastating effect on my life. My wife would still have been with me if she had not gone into hospital ..."

Lord Fitt said patients suffering from the potentially fatal infection "almost feel like lepers" as they had to be segregated. Even visiting relatives had to wear gloves to avoid contracting the bug.

He warned his fellow peers that it would probably be 10 years before a drug could be developed "to contain its ravages".

Lord Fitt underlined the vital role of isolation wards in containing infection but said many hospitals had lost them because they were not cost- effective.

The crossbencher Baroness Masham of Ilton, a co-opted member of the committee, said one of the key recommendations was for the NHS to set targets to control MRSA in hospitals and publish its achievements.

She said the "misuse and overuse" of antibiotics was threatening to undo their early promise in controlling disease.

It was a worrying problem which required "global cooperation".

The Liberal Democrat Lord Clement-Jones said the report highlighted "with frightening starkness" the problems of microbiological resistance.

He added it highlighted a certain NHS "complacency" which he hoped would be changed as a result of the report.

"TB, meningitis, typhoid and pneumonia - all the diseases which killed our grandparents and parents - are potentially coming back to haunt us."