A PATIENT who fears she has been exposed to an incurable brain disease has hit out at the way the crisis was handled by North-East hospital officials.

The 38-year-old Darlington woman - who asked to be known only as Mandy - feared the worst when she read in The Northern Echo on Wednesday that some patients who had undergone brain surgery at Middlesbrough General Hospital might have been infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

She was alarmed because she underwent three brain operations at the hospital in the space of a week.

"I didn't know anything about CJD or what risk I faced," said Mandy.

Having read that the hospital was contacting 24 patients, she waited for a call - but the phone failed to ring.

By 11am she could not wait any longer and rang the hospital helpline. To her horror she was told: "We have got you on the list and we will ring you shortly."

She continued to wait by the phone, hoping for information and advice.

"I rang back at 1.50pm because no one had rung me. They said someone would ring me back," said Mandy.

At 3.30pm she rang the helpline again and told the hospital it was "totally unacceptable" that no one had been in touch.

"They still didn't explain about CJD. Eventually, they said they were sending counsellors out to see people, including a clergyman. I said, how can you counsel people who don't know what the problem is?"

Eventually, at 4.50pm, Mandy's sister rang the helpline and managed to get her an appointment with a specialist the following day.

Through her sister, Mandy was also told that she was at "minimal risk" of having contracted CJD. "That was the first information I got about risk," said Mandy.

Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government's chief medical officer, has ordered an NHS investigation into the incident.

The scare follows an exploratory brain operation on July 19 on a woman patient who was not suspected of having the rare fatal disease, which can take 20 years before it develops.

A pathologist who wanted to rule out the condition sent a sample to the national CJD centre in Edinburgh for analysis. When a positive CJD diagnosis was confirmed on August 8, the hospital ordered that the instruments be set aside.

By that time they had been used on many other patients.

But it was only on Tuesday - nearly three months after the diagnosis - that the trust was given the go-ahead by the CJD surveillance unit to warn the patients.

At first, the Department of Health claimed that the South Tees Trust had failed to follow guidelines that instruments used on a suspected CJD case should be taken out of use. But the trust has insisted that the guidelines were followed.

Mandy, who is married with a ten-year-old son, said: "If there was ever a question that there was something, they should have stopped using those instruments."

She is furious about the way patients were told. "I am going to make an official complaint. I want an apology and I want them to do something so this doesn't happen again," she said.

Last night, the South Tees trust confirmed that it had contacted all 24 patients deemed to be at potential risk. More than 250 people have rung the helpline, which has now closed.

Chief Executive Bill Murray said: "We are deeply sorry for any distress caused to the patients and their families and will do everything we possibly can to help them through this difficult time."

Each patient is being allocated a "named person" to support them.

Peter Foulkes, a medical negligence solicitor with Middlesbrough specialist lawyers Armstrong Foulkes, said "a number" of patients had been in touch.