Families of men and women who died after contracting the Clostridium Difficile bug in a Scottish hospital yesterday took their fight for a public inquiry to the Scottish Parliament.
Families of men and women who died after contracting the Clostridium Difficile bug in a Scottish hospital yesterday took their fight for a public inquiry to the Scottish Parliament.
A petition calling for an immediate inquiry was presented to Frank McAveety, convener of the public petitions committee.
The call was backed by opposition MSPs after the parliament earlier voted for an inquiry. Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said she was sympathetic, but it was best to wait until investigations by both police and Health and Safety Executive had ended.
The deaths of 18 patients at the Vale of Leven Hospital in West Dunbartonshire were linked to C Diff. Michelle Stewart, whose mother-in-law Sarah McGinty died at the hospital, is secretary of the families justice group.
She said yesterday: "We need to be able to learn lessons from what happened at the Vale of Leven. To do that we need a public inquiry. We feel we are only scraping the surface of what has gone wrong. We need trust to be restored to the NHS.
"People are telling us they are terrified of going into hospital. We need the NHS to be honest and transparent and admit the mistakes so we can learn and never repeat them."
She added: "We believe that a fully funded public inquiry is the only way we will ever learn the truth about how and why our loved ones died. Getting to the truth is vital for our own peace of mind.
"But it is even more important that we prevent any other family going through what we have suffered and that is the driving force behind our campaign.
"That is why we are petitioning the Scottish Parliament to call on government ministers to order a fully funded public inquiry. We cannot understand why Nicola Sturgeon hasn't ordered one, unless she and her officials have something to hide."
The Liberal Democrats supported the call for an inquiry, while Labour demanded more detailed information on the spread of C Diff.
Ross Finnie, LibDem health spokesman, said: "The parliament first called for a public inquiry into C Diff over two months ago. So far the Health Secretary has failed to do what is in the best interests of the people of Scotland.The Crown Office's current investigation into the C Diff outbreaks should in no way prevent the Health Secretary from setting up the first stages of a full public inquiry."
Richard Simpson, Labour's health spokesman, said Health Protection Scotland was unaware of the number of C Diff cases in individual hospitals.
He said: "Nicola Sturgeon's complacency about hospital acquired infections has been unacceptable, but this is genuinely shocking. Health Protection Scotland is the organisation responsible for ensuring that our hospitals are clean and safe, but they have effectively admitted they don't have a clue what is going on.
"This is a matter of real concern, which further underlines the need for an immediate public inquiry into C Diff."
Ms Sturgeon said: "I am sympathetic to the calls that have been made for me to hold a public inquiry. While these investigations are ongoing there would be a risk of prejudice to any possible criminal proceedings if a public inquiry was ordered now."
Meanwhile, the Tories have started a campaign for an electronic bed management system to be implemented to monitor infection rates.
Health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: "The current labour-intensive and inconsistently administered paper-based system makes it difficult to track patient movement, infection trends, and cleaning histories. In contrast, an electronic bed management system provides the history of a bed at the touch of a button."
