Marion Ham, whose husband David died aged 60 in October 2006, has rejected East Sussex Hospital Trust's statement that no cases of MRSA have been recorded at either the Conquest or Eastbourne District General Hospital in the last three months.

"This is completely and utterly untrue," she said.
Mrs Ham, whose husband was a special constable in the Hastings area for 15 years, has criticised the trust's policy to only record MRSA cases if the bug is found in the patient's blood.

"The Government, through the Department of Health instructs trusts to, it seems, only record blood borne MRSA.

"Yet MRSA attacks tissue, organs and joints without mercy and doesn't always show in blood cultures.
"Because of recording practices, it took me seven months hard effort to get MRSA recorded on my husbands death certificate. Why should I have had to fight the system to get justice at a time when my grief could have enveloped me?"

Mrs Ham, who used to live in Bexhill but now lives in , wants all patients who are admitted to hospitals for operations to be screened for the bug to cut down on the risk of infection.

A trust spokesman said: "All trusts are measured against a national target of the number MRSA bacteraemia cases which is where patients have MRSA isolated from a blood culture.

"Blood cultures are taken when patients experience serious illness and infection is suspected. If bacteria is found in the patients blood culture this is a bacteraemia and is used to assist in the diagnosis of the patients infection.

"A clear distinction is needed between MRSA colonisation and infection. Colonisation is where MRSA is found on a patient's skin, up their nose or within the throat and there are no clinical signs of infection. Most cases of MRSA that are identified are colonisation."

He added that almost all patients admitted - except for very low risk cases - are screened for MRSA.

From July most emergency admissions - excluding mothers admitted for emergency caesarean sections - will be tested for the bug.