Mavis Burton-Pye, 68, was told that her husband’s slippers were contaminated just after she found out he had died. But she did not know that he had lost his life to Clostridium difficile until she read it on his death certificate.

Leslie Burton-Pye, 74, who had diabetes, went into James Paget University Hospital, Norfolk, in April last year for a routine blood transfusion. It should have been an overnight stay, but six weeks later he was still there.

“There was no mention of C. difficile all those weeks,” Mrs Burton-Pye said yesterday. “I didn’t have a clue what it was.”

She is taking legal action against the hospital over the infection, for which the symptoms are diarrhoea and bowel problems.

“Every time I went to visit him they wouldn’t let me in. They said they had to clean him up. I went to put new things in his locker and found a bag full of dirty linen – you’ve never smelt anything like it,” she said.

A former lorry driver, Mr Burton-Pye’s condition declined and his wife was told that he would not make it through the night, but a few days later he seemed to be on the mend. “They pumped so many antibiotics in him and sent him home. He was looking better in himself, but every hour he was going to the loo. I was rolling the linen up and putting it in the wheelie bin. We spent hundreds of pounds on Dettol and bed linen.

“He was very pale and had no life in him. We tried to get some drink in him, then early on Sunday morning they took him in and he never came out.

“The surgeons said he was on a life-support machine and had about an hour. His bowels were so inflated that they had blown up like a balloon ready to burst.

“He died a terrible death and I can’t get my life together. I keep my house clean and myself clean and my small dog and sometimes I feel like ending it.

“While he was in hospital we used the hand cleaner and had a good wash when we got home. We didn’t know about C. difficile but we knew something wasn’t right.

“He was the best man that ever walked in my eyes. He was a plain country man, he loved life, he liked a joke and I miss him so terribly.”

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