The bug that refuses to go away

Harry And The Hormones (Tyne Tees Television)

SCARY was definitely the right word for this Intensive Scares documentary. It wasn't just the physical details of infections and inflammations that were alarming, but the idea that there's a superbug lurking in hospitals, waiting to prey on unsuspecting patients. The news doesn't get any better when told that it's becoming resistant to antibiotics.

Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA - 'the bug that refuses to go away' - invades the body and can cause terrible damage. Over 7,000 people are infected every year. "It's everywhere and now it looks as if it's becoming untreatable," intoned the voice of doom narrator.

One of the first outbreaks was at the Royal London Hospital 20 years ago, with 500 patients affected. At first, no one knew how it was getting from one place to another. Hospital dust was one method, and some doctors were found to be carriers. Any patient with an open wound was at risk. Screening was put in place, along with strict hygiene and isolation.

Worringly, few hospitals in the country today have the facilities to deal properly with preventing MRSA and its spread. Screening, isolation and hand hygiene are the key, but that's expensive.

The cost for some patients has been high too. Bravely, they told their stories. Like widower Derek Unger who caught the bug while in hospital for a simple operation on his foot. He had to have his leg amputated. Even worse, he contracted MRSA again after an operation on his other foot. That leg was amputated too.

Ironically, nurse Penny Roberts specialised in infection control. Put into hospital through a sky-diving accident, she battled against MRSA while recovering from injuries that had left her paralysed.

Single mum Lorna gave birth by caesarean. Her wound wouldn't heal and her abdomen started to swell. Antibiotics failed to work as her stomach became bigger than when she was nine months pregnant. She couldn't even hold her new-born son without it being excruciatingly painful.

She was eventually given one of the most powerful antibiotics available, known, worringly for the patient, as 'the drug of last resort'. It worked, although details of how the infection broke are the stuff of horror movies.

Lorna recovered, Penny is back sky-diving and Derek is coming to terms with his disability. But this attempt at a feelgood ending was let down by the fact that MRSA is still with us and becoming increasingly resistant, even to the drug of last resort, and making some serious infections untreatable.

Harry And The Hormones, the latest in Tyne Tees Television's Hothouse series of pilot shows, was pretty horrific too. This was an obvious attempt to set up a series about members of a punk band reforming for one more night of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

It was a very ramshackle affair whose saving grace was Brendan Healy as the owner of a store named Big Ted's Tool Tower. Now he might be worth a series