HEALTH chiefs at an under-fire hospital have apologised to the family of an 86-year-old for not telling them she had contracted MRSA while in their care.

Civil servant Diane Woods only discovered her mother Marjorie Todd had the infection when she found a new cream on her bedside table, Burnley Coroner’s Court was told.

Mrs Todd was under-going rehabilitation at Pendle Community Hosp-ital, which has been the subject of a major overhaul after the case of 89-year-old Hilda Carr, from Mellor, who was left covered in her own filth.

Hospital bosses have replaced the entire management team of the Nelson hospital in the wake of complaints by Mrs Carr’s daughter, Jacqueline Keen.

An inquest into the death of Mrs Todd, of Foxhill Drive, Whitewell Bottom, Rossendale, heard MRSA was only a minor factor in her death from a pulmonary emb-olism, brought on by deep vein thrombosis.

Mrs Todd was placed in a ward at Pendle following a hip operation, after suffering a ‘nasty fall’ in July 2007.

Her daughter said she was shocked to discover in August that her mother had MRSA, as there had been no indication from nursing staff.

Mrs Woods said: “When I asked the staff nurse ‘has my mother got MRSA’, she said ‘I don’t know’. Then she took mum’s notes and said ‘yes she has’ and she is going to use this cream as a treatment.”

The daughter said she was concerned as her mother was due to be transferred to the Royal Blackburn Hospital next day for further tests.

“I was also shocked to think that it is normal procedure to nurse someone with MRSA on an open ward,” she said.

Kathy Bonney, senior matron at Pendle Community Hospital, said a wound, caused by the operation, had begun to weep.

Close observation was kept but it was only when tests were carried out on August 24, that it was found to be infected.

Referring to Mrs Todd’s daughter, she added: “I can only apologise. She should have been infor-med when the swabs came back.”

The inquest heard one of Mrs Todd’s consult-ants was also dismayed that she had contracted MRSA, after it was believed her condition had been stabilised.

Mrs Todd was tran-sferred to the Blackburn hospital but died on October 2.

Recording an accidental death verdict, East Lanc-ashire coroner Richard Taylor said: “The under-lying cause of death was the fall and that was purely accidental.”