The husband of a nurse who became the first person in Britain to die from a new deadly strain of MRSA contracted in hospital described the heartbreak yesterday of bringing up their newborn baby alone.

Maribel Espada died four days after undergoing an emergency Caesarean at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, where she had worked as a nurse for four years.

Health experts believe that Mrs Espada had previously picked up the Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL)-MRSA bug while working at the hospital. But it got into her bloodstream during the emergency operation last September.

Wen Espada, 30, told The Times that he was devastated at the thought of bringing up their son, Arwen, alone. “This was our first child and the only comfort I have is that Maribel got to see him and spent six days with him before her death. The doctors never mentioned MRSA and they had not mentioned to my wife that there had been an outbreak of MRSA even though she worked at the hospital.”

Mr Espada, a warehouse worker, said that Maribel became ill four days after Arwen was delivered on September 20. Doctors told Mr Espada that his wife had died of an infection, and a postmortem examination confirmed PVL-MRSA.

One other patient at the hospital is known to have died there in March from the bacterium and an internal investigation carried out after Mrs Espada’s death has identified a further nine cases at the hospital.

Mr Espada said that he had instructed a firm of solicitors. “If the hospital has tried to cover this up, they should be made to pay for it,” he said.

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire refused to comment on Mrs Espada’s death.

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