Trust the Tories on MRSA - you must be joking

Apr 27 2005

Hospital cleaners, nurses and health workers today attacked claims by Michael Howard that the Tories could be trusted to “Clean up our hospitals” as outrageous.

Speaking at UNISON’s health conference in Plymouth, Gill Robertson a hospital cleaner at West Suffolk Hospital said:

”How can you trust a man who lectures and hectors hospital cleaners and then doesn’t even wash his own hands between patients when he’s shaking hands? And he clearly hasn’t got a clue about MRSA if he thinks it’s OK to wash his hands and then sit on a patient’s bed. Vote for him - you must be joking.”

Grimsby Nurse Ann Moses also expressed her disgust saying:

“It’s sickening to see Howard using nurses to score political points, visiting hospitals and shaking hands and then criticising them and the state of hospitals behind our backs.

“His grand plan to spend £10m on developing screening tests for MRSA would buy 1.7 million cleaning hours - now that’s what I call making a difference.

“How can we trust the Tories when the biggest increase in MRSA was between 1992 and 1997 when rates went up from 4% to more than 30%. It was the Tories who sold cleaning contracts to the cheapest bidder leading to devastating job cuts. There are now half the number of hospital cleaners in the NHS than 20 years ago.

“Trust the Tories on MRSA - you must be joking.”