13 OAPs DIE ON WARDS.

Byline: By EUAN STRETCH

THIRTEEN elderly patients have died at a hospital after an outbreak of Clostridium difficile.

A further 17 are being treated for the superbug and a special isolation unit has been opened to try to contain the spread. Wards have been shut, extra staff brought in and chief executive Kim Hodgson has volunteered for nursing shifts in a bid to tackle the outbreak.

Other patients were transferred to hospitals up to 30 miles away for surgery. Three OAPs aged 85, 89 and 91 died as a result of C-diff at Eastbourne District General Hospital, East Sussex.

The 10 other deaths were linked to the bug, which causes diarrhoea.

All were admitted with respiratory problems. The outbreak began on January 1.

Director Dr Barry Phillips at East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust said yesterday: "We have never had an outbreak on this scale."

Hospital bosses bought a special pounds 100,000 hydrogen peroxide vaporisation system to decontaminate the six of its eight medical wards which had infected patients.

A trust spokesman said: "These are used to ensure C.diff spores are destroyed. This ensures that the trust's housekeeping teams can immediately decontaminate any area." C.diff lives in the gut and causes diarrhoea and colitis - inflamed bowels. It multiplies when antibiotics disturb the natural balance of germs in the body.

CAPTION(S):

VOLUNTEER Hodgson