THE superbugs that led to thousands of virulent infections in hospital patients last year respect neither youth nor celebrity.

The actress Leslie Ash thought she was going to die; for Samantha Johnstone, a teenager with cancer, it was one more hurdle to surmount as she fought to recover from a major operation.

As the Department of Health announced the latest statistics yesterday, the victims behind them spoke of their distress.

Ms Ash, 45, who contracted MRSA in April last year, said: “There were times when I wondered if I was going to make it. On a scale of one to ten, I’d say that after a hell of a lot of hard work I’ve now reached eight.”

Ms Ash, who is able at last to walk without support, is suing the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital where she contracted the infection during treatment for a punctured lung.

After an MRI scan at Charing Cross Hospital, which revealed the extent of the infection, she was told that she might not survive or that she might not walk again.

“I was enjoying a fantastic career, nearly 30 years of it, and to be struck down so suddenly was very, very upsetting,” she said. “I went into hospital with one thing and came out with another. I recover on a daily basis and then I reach a plateau. Then I go on again. I am doing so well, walking without a stick, but my balance needs a bit of working on.

“I go to the gym every day and battle on. People talk about figures, about statistics, but we just want to see cleaner hospitals without patients contracting these hideous superbugs.

“People have lost their confidence in the NHS. They are so terrified of going into hospital and this really shouldn’t be the case. It’s all down to cleanliness. Nurses should be washing their hands between attending to each patient, and visitors should make sure they are clean. Hospitals need matrons to take pride in their wards.”

Samantha Johnstone would understand the distress that the actress endured. The student had more than enough to contend with when she was told that she had the rare bone cancer, Ewing’s sarcoma. She had found a lump in her side in March last year, a few days before her 17th birthday.

In August she had four ribs replaced with metal prostheses, and underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment at Western General Hospital in Glasgow. Six weeks later, she noticed that her wound was failing to heal properly and, to her dismay, MRSA was diagnosed.

Samantha, now 18, from Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire, said yesterday: “I couldn’t believe it when they told me I had MRSA.

“At that point I was feeling really down anyway, and going through a hard time with the cancer treatment. I did not take too kindly to the news. It was a big shock. It didn’t make me feel especially ill but, psychologically, it didn’t do me much good. It made things much more difficult.”

She was moved to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where she underwent ten days of intense antibiotic treatments twice a day.

Samantha was supported by her parents, Stephen and Jackie, her brother, also called Stephen, and sister, Karen, who spent many hours at her bedside as she fought the cancer.

Now in remission, Samantha, who lost a year’s schooling, plans to go to university to become a radiographer.

“If I can help people half as much as the doctors and nurses helped me, I would feel so rewarded,” she said.

She does not blame the hospital. “I definitely can’t blame the doctors and nurses,” she said. “The ward I was in was 100 per cent clean. They were forever washing their hands — though I can’t say the same for the cleaners.”

Samantha became close friends with the nurses; so much so that they paid for a chauffeur-driven limousine so she could set off in style when she was finally discharged.

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