Holding hands to the end, the elderly couple killed 20 minutes apart by a hospital superbug

Lionel and Rosemary Owen, who were days from their 20th wedding anniversary, were holding hands until the end.

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Mrs Owen, 70, contracted Clostridium difficile while undergoing kidney dialysis at a local hospital.

She was allowed to return home, where she passed the bug on to her 80-year-old husband.

Both were admitted to hospital, dying days later in front of Mrs Owen's heartbroken daughter, Nina Griffiths.

The mother-of-two, a nurse, said yesterday that she was considering legal action after a coroner recorded a misadventure verdict on the couple.

She believes the hospital could have prevented the double tragedy.

"The last stages of their lives were tragically undignified," she said.

"As they lay dying together I knew I had to do something to stop anyone else going through this.

"I blame the pressures on the nurses and staff. Hospitals need old-fashioned matrons back on the wards to make sure there is cleanliness."

C.diff is passed on by people. If people use soap and water to wash their hands it kills it off.

She added: "It is absolutely awful to watch your parents die like that.

"I cannot remember the nice things about them any more because I can only remember that last day."

The appalling circumstances behind the couple's deaths in January at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital will add to increasing demands for urgent action over rising rates of superbugs.

Earlier this month it was revealed that 90 hospital patients died in an outbreak which was blamed on appalling hygiene standards in three hospitals in Kent.

Mrs Griffiths, 39, claimed staff at the hospital knew her twice-married mother contracted the bug as a dialysis outpatient but allowed her to return home.

She added: "I want to know why this was allowed to happen – it has wiped out a generation of my family and deprived my children of their grandparents.

"I won't drop it until somebody admits what they have done and apologises. The system failed them and I'm prepared to go to court for answers."

This week champion horse trainer Jenny Pitman launched a national campaign for hospital cleanliness.

She spoke out after her 92-yearold father contracted a superbug – and added that her horses were treated with more respect than many NHS patients.

Mrs Griffiths yesterday said she supported the campaign, and called for an old-fashioned approach to ward hygiene.

"My mother backed the NHS 100 per cent," she said.

"She will be turning in her grave now because the thing she believed in did for her in the end."

An inquest on Thursday into Mr Owen's death heard the former engineer, who helped invent the TV detector van, caught C.diff from his wife, who was infected during dialysis sessions.

Mrs Owen had regularly visited the hospital up to three times a week as an outpatient, and last December tested positive for C.diff. However, she was allowed to continue her visits.

Mr Owen then became ill with a chest infection and was admitted to the Royal Devon & Exeter hospital for four days.

Shortly after he was sent back to their home in Exeter, his wife was admitted to the intensive care unit suffering severe diarrhoea.

On the next day Mr Owen was sent to the same unit with the same symptoms.

They both deteriorated very quickly and staff moved their beds next to each other, linked their hands and switched off their life support machines.

Mrs Owen died from heart failure while her husband had a brain haemorrhage.

The inquest heard the couple contracted exactly the same strain of C.diff.

Coroner Dr Elizabeth Earland said: "The strain of C.diff identified in Mr Owen and his wife Rosemary are identical.

"This suggests Mr Owen may well have been exposed to the organism by his wife, who showed signs of the disease."

Mrs Griffiths added: "I want to draw attention to this issue and make sure all deaths due to superbugs are properly recorded.

"Nothing will bring them back or erase that terrible last memory. But we will now fight so that something positive can come out of it."

A spokesman for the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital said yesterday: "We are thoroughly investigating a complaint received from the family about the care of Rosemary Owen.

"The circumstances related to the loss of Mr and Mrs Owen are complex and we intend to do all we can to explain to their family what happened in hospital."