THE CURSE OF MRSA; They are the patients who go into hospital for routine procedures - and leave months later, crippled by pain. In the concluding part of the Mail's major series on the dire state of our health service, victims of superbugs tell their harrowing stories; OUR SICK NATION.

Byline: by Marianne Power

THIS week in a gripping series, the Mail has examined the parlous state of the health service. From the cystic fibrosis patient who lives in fear of dirty wards to the 700 cancer patients whose aftercare has disappeared, real people have stepped up to share their shocking stories. Here, in the concluding part of the series, two women reveal the horrors of contracting the MRSA superbug -- and the devastating impact it has had on both their lives... JULIE Shannon kept taking pictures with her mobile phone. She didn't care how much it annoyed the hospital staff. She took pictures of the angry, weeping, infected scar left by her hysterectomy. She took pictures of the balls of dust and peeling floors in the hospital. And six weeks after her surgery, she took pictures of the wound that had become so enlarged that two human fists could fit in it.

'It's like my own horror film,' she laughs drily, talking from her home in Clonmel. 'My flesh was rotting. I knew I had to record what was happening. I just knew it wasn't right having had surgery on several occasions before.' Julie's 'horror film' started when she contracted MRSA, the hospital superbug, after having a full hysterectomy at Waterford Regional Hospital.

Sent home just days after surgery, Julie had to fight to get the treatment she needed.

Now, more than five years later Julie, 48, is still haunted by the damage caused by the infection, which lasted 14 months. She is in daily pain - managed only with the help of 120 painkillers a month - and rarely leaves the house. She has never been able to return to education or work.

'There were times I wished I hadn't survived,' admits Julie, who is also on antidepressants. 'I am a fighter but there are days when I've thought, "to hell with this, let me die". What am I living for now? 'What's around the corner? I've gone from someone who wouldn't take an Anadin to someone who is crippled without painkillers. Before my operation I had returned to school as a mature student, with the intentions of going on to third-level education. Which would have given me many a career opportunity. That hasn't happened.

This has taken everything from me, my social life, my working life. And nobody will tell me when the pain will go. The shutters come down and the doors slam shut if you even broach the subject of MRSA.' Every year thousands of people contract a potentially deadly hospital infection, which can lead to complications such as pneumonia, meningitis and blood poisoning and are resistant to most antibiotics. Even after the infection has been cleared, the pain remains. Doctors are yet unclear as to exactly why this is, but they believe it is the result of nerve damage.

The most recent HSE figures show that in 2008, 430 people contracted MRSA, while 2,359 contracted the stomach bug, C difficile. While the Government argues that these infection rates are down on previous years, experts believes that the figures represent only the tip of the iceberg. 'We have no idea of the extent of the problem,' says sociologist Dr Teresa Graham, from Stop Infections Now. 'HSE figures only look at MRSA blood infections, but there are other forms of MRSA, such as infections of the bone, or of the respiratory system, or of wounds, which can result in years of disability, pain and weeping ulcers. I know of people who have had their legs amputated and their joints removed because of MRSA - but none of that is captured in the statistics.' Meanwhile she says the figures for C Diff - an outbreak of which has this week occurred at Our Lady's in Drogheda - don't capture the number of infections in nursing homes.

'While many people blame the reliance on contract cleaners for poor hygiene, it's the lack of supervision that is the problem,' says Dr Graham. 'The latest figures show that only 66 per cent of doctors wash their hands between patients. Nobody is being held accountable in hospitals.' And Dr Graham says the situation is only going to get worse.

'While budget cuts are not going to affect people's ability to wash their hands, it will stop the plans for extra isolation rooms so desperately needed to stem infection. Meanwhile, people's whole quality of life is being destroyed and there is no recompense, the State just hopes they go away.' Now Dr Graham's focus is on trying to help find justice for people such as Julie Shannon, who she feels have been abandoned by the State.

Julie's case is typical of hospitals' attitude to superbugs.

Sent home just four days after her hysterectomy at Waterford Regional Hospital, in October 2004, she had to wait six weeks before anyone told her she had MRSA - and a further seven weeks before getting proper treatment.

'I'd had surgery before so I knew that the oozing scars were not right,' says Julie, who needed the hysterectomy after doctors suspected ovarian cancer. 'I was sent home with painkillers and antibiotics, told to wash out the wound a few times a day and to come back daily to have my dressings changed.' As the days and weeks passed, the wound on her stomach got worse and the pain was so bad she could hardly walk more than a few steps.

'I used to sit by the back door with it open,' says Julie. 'I smelled like dead meat, the stench was unbearable. I would travel to the hospital to have my dressings changed every day with cushions on my stomach to stop the smell.' It was not until December 4 that year, that Julie was told she had MRSA.

'One of the nurses in Waterford Regional Hospital looked at my file and said I had MRSA,' says Julie, who was then re-admitted to hospital. 'I asked her how she knew that and she said that a swab had been done five or six weeks ago. But I had never been told.' Julie spent the next two months in and out of hospital. She says her treatment was 'a farce from start to finish'. 'Every day they would clear out the wound with saline, remove the black necrotic flesh and re-pack it, but there was so much gunge coming out that it would be a mess again within an hour,' she says.

'The wound was so big you could practically see my spine but I had to fight to get the only antibiotic that has some success in treating MRSA - Vancomycin - because I was told it was too expensive.

'The place was dirty. There were balls of dust under the beds and the floors were peeling in the corners. Eventually I was put in isolation but that was a joke. The same mop went from room to room, cleaners would go around with J cloths, but nobody ever cleaned the underbars of the bed. It got to the stage where my husband, parents and brothers were bringing in disinfectants and cloths to clean the ward. They would bring in my food too, I wouldn't eat from there.' As for the medical staff, she says: 'I don't recall ever seeing a doctor or nurse wash their hands or wear sterile gloves or proper gowns.' It was a chance conversation with a girl visiting her mother who also had MRSA that saved her life.

She told Julie about a VAC (vacuum assisted closure) machine that could be used to treat MRSA by literally sucking out the infection for several hours a day.

'I asked the doctors if I could have it, but I was told I couldn't because I was technically an outpatient,' she says.

'I think it was because it cost E800 a week. It was only when I got my solicitor to write a letter that I was readmitted and the machine appeared.' Julie believes it was that treatment that saved her life. Finally, 14 months after surgery, her infection cleared in December 2005.

While she is grateful to have survived, it is an understatement to say that her life has never been the same. 'This has killed my future,' she says simply. 'And I know I am not the only one.' Indeed. Once an active woman, who 'never got so much as a cold', Sylvia Pain from Waterford, has spent the last 18 months trying to recover from a hospital infection following a knee replacement in April 2007.

Sylvia had contracted a hospital infection called Cons (Coagulate Negative Staphloccus), which, unlike MRSA, does respond to antibiotics but it is every bit as life-threatening.

'It has totally ruined our lives,' says Sylvia, aged 72. 'My partner had to take a year off to look after me because I was immobile and even now walking any distance is hard. I'm in constant physical pain; there's not a place in my body that doesn't ache.' Sylvia was fully screened before she was admitted to Lourdes Orthopaedic Hospital, Kilcreene, Co. Kilkenny, and found to be completely clear of any infection. However, two days after surgery the area on the side of Sylvia's knee started to swell. It was hot and sore. Soon after it broke open and was pouring with puss.

'They told me I'd picked up an infection,' says Sylvia. 'I asked how this had happened when I was healthy when I came in. They said it must have happened during the surgical procedure and that it was 'bad luck'. I was a theatre nurse for a long time. I asked them what happened to prepping the skin before surgery but there was nothing but excuses. All they could say was: "Oh well, these things happen."

Sylvia stayed in hospital for two weeks fighting the infection with strong IV antibiotics, which left her weak and sick, with sores on her mouth.

Her concern was lack of hygiene among medical staff.

She explains: 'I don't think the doctors wash their hands between patients, nurses neither come to that. I think that is where the problem is. There was a very casual attitude to stethoscopes. They were never washed in between being moved from patient to patient. I never saw staff use hand scrubs.' Like Julie, Sylvia was sent home before her infection was under control.

'The infection didn't go for another month,' says Sylvia. 'It was weeping and sore. My husband had to stay with me around the clock for a whole year because for months I was immobile. I wasn't even able to get up the stairs. He lost E20,000 in earnings.' Eighteen months later, the infection has gone but the pain and immobility remain because her knee replacement has failed to knit with the rest of the leg. 'My knee still isn't working properly,' explains Sylvia. 'I can't bend it, I can't kneel, I can't walk any distance. We will never know for sure whether it was the infection stopped the prosthesis from working.' Sylvia now faces more surgery to rectify the problem but this time she will be going in protected.

'I'm going back for surgery next month. I've bought a special kit with sprays and hand wash and a little sign you can put by your bed, asking 'Have you washed your hands?' I am taking every precaution I can. If that means telling doctors to wash their hands, I'll do it. I'm not frightened of offending people.' Understandably, Sylvia and Julie are very angry about what has happened.

'It's debilitating and depressing,' says Sylvia. 'I'm an ex-nurse so I know that there are a lot of people worse off than me but sometimes it's hard to remember that when you're in so much pain.

'You don't expect to go into a hospital and get an infection.' She continues: 'We went to see a solicitor who said we had a really good case but financially we don't know if we can do it.' Julie on the other hand is preparing to take action. All her notes and her photos are now with a solicitor.

'I want my day in court,' she says. 'I want my doctor to answer questions like how this happened to me and why I was not given proper treatment for so long. I also want people to see what MRSA can do to you, I still think some people have no idea the extent of damage MRSA can have on every aspect of your life.' Julie is trying to find the lady that informed her about VAC treatment or indeed that lady's mother whom she believes is named Nora or Norah whom probably would have been in her late 60s early 70s at the time and maybe from the Waterford area, This lady was moved to a Cork hospital on December 5, 2004. If you have any information, Julie can be contacted at t h e f o l l o w i n g e -mail address [e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

Evidence: Julie Shannon took snaps of dust Lack of hygiene: Sylvia King, pictured with husband Alan, says the attitude of hospital staff to cleanliness was her main worry. Now she says the infection that she caught in hospital has 'totally ruined our lives'