MP demands answers over Basildon Hospital Legionnaires’ death (From Basildon Recorder)

MP demands answers over Basildon Hospital Legionnaires’ death

12:40pm Tuesday 30th August 2011 in News By Faye Hackwell

AN MP is demanding answers over how a patient allegedly contracted legionnaires’ disease and subsequently died at Basildon Hospital.

Stephen Metcalfe, MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, says he had assurances the hospital was on top of previous problems and was using state-of-the-art equipment to detect the disease and deal with it.

He will now hold talks with the chairman of the hospital’s board of directors, Sir Peter Dixon, about how to eradicate the problem.

On August 20, a patient, whose sex and age haven’t been revealed, became the fourth person to die after suffering the disease at the hospital in less than ten years.

Mr Metcalfe said: “It’s a tragedy for the family of the individual and very sad.

“We’ve got to get to the root of how we can stop this happening again, as this seems to be a problem that keeps coming back.”

Mr Metcalfe held meetings with the hospital’s chief executive, Alan Whittle, after the last death of a patient at the hospital with the disease – Raymond Cackett, 54, who died in March last year. Legionnaires’ disease is a fatal form of pneumonia caused by legionella pneumophila and is related to bacteria often found in natural water sources, like rivers or lakes, and purpose-built water systems, like cooling towers.

Mr Metcalfe said: “I was reassured the hospital had a system in place that would detect if the bacteria was in its water system, which it said was the most comprehensive testing system any hospital was using.

“But this is about protecting the patients and on this occasion, someone has contracted the disease and died.”

Since the first case of legionnaires’ was identified at the hospital in 2002, the hospital has spent £2million improving its plumbing system.

Water in its distribution system is continuously being thermally disinfected, monitored and chemically dosed – which means chemicals are added to the water to protect it from the likes of corrosion, sludge and limescale.

The hospital is unable to comment on the current situation, but has said in the past: “It is accepted by experts it is practically impossible to eradicate the legionella bacteria on an ongoing basis from large and complex water systems.

“It has to be contained and controlled by a continuous regime of precautionary measures.”