'I was shocked by the filth'

Retired teacher Jos Crowe contracted MRSA in St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.

He says he was shocked at the state of the ward and horrified at the casual attitude towards hygiene in the hospital.

Mr Crowe, 72, who lives in Westminster, went to the A&E department in November last year after feeling unwell and was told one of his lungs had collapsed.

"I was told I needed a fairly straightforward procedure to reinflate the lung," he said.

"It was carried out under local anaesthetic and I was transferred to a ward. It was filthy. My wife had to plead for the sheets on my bed to be changed. Dried blood was left on the bedrails and never washed off all the time I was there.

"Once, my wife went to open the door of my bedside cabinet and there were locks of hair everywhere from where someone had had a haircut and the area had not been cleaned.

"There was dirt all over the place. The cleaners would do the centre of the ward but not under or around the beds."

Within days, Mr Crowe had developed MRSA. He said: "A man opposite had got it before me. The doctors admitted it was all over the place but seemed to accept it."

The infection left Mr Crowe with a fever and added at least a week to his hospital stay as his immune system came under sustained attack.

"Before I went to hospital I was doing a bit of emergency supply teaching," Mr Crowe said. "When I came out, I felt very weak from the MRSA. I cannot fault my treatment but the state of the ward and the cleanliness was unacceptable and meant I took a lot longer to recover than I should have."

Last night the hospital said it could not comment on Mr Crowe's treatment.