'I didn't know my baby could catch superbug'
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Thursday October 09 2008
WHEN one young mother took her new-born baby home from Letterkenny General Hospital she knew something was wrong.
"I noticed a bad smell coming from his tummy button and it didn't look like it was healing," she recalled.
Worried, she took her baby son back to the hospital and the wound was swabbed and tested.
The next day she was contacted by her GP who said her baby had tested positive for MRSA. The infection soon spread to his eye, nose, throat and groin.
"I was gutted and didn't know where to turn. I didn't know a baby could get MRSA," she said.
Speaking to the Irish Independent yesterday after the revelations of further cases at the hospital she said she was shocked it could still be happening four months later. "I just gaped. I couldn't believe it and it brought everything back," she said.
The young mother who has three other children, said the hospital left her in the dark over how to deal with the infection.
"Eventually after eight weeks someone from [the hospital's] Infection Control gave me guidelines, such as how to bath the baby," she said. "I'm still struggling and he still has it on him.
"I have no doubt it's hospital-borne. When I was pregnant I did everything right. I didn't smoke or drink and ate healthily. There was nowhere else he could have picked it up."
- Anita Guidera
