How I beat MRSA by Michael Winner

The flamboyant film director was struck down with MRSA while already fighting a potentiallydeadly leg infection.

The 71-year-old is now recovering at home after undergoing 11 operations.

He claims he was as near to death "as you can ever be" four times during the illness.

His medical nightmare began on New Year's Day when he ate an oyster harbouring bacteria that can kill in 48 hours.

He said the infection left him close to death four times with his left leg covered in black blisters and bleeding profusely.

When the limb began to rot he was flown back to Britain, where he spent three months in hospital.

At some point he also contracted MRSA, a bacteria associated-with dirty wards. Doctors used massive doses of antibiotics to clear up the infection and he was given the all-clear ten days ago.

"It is a massive relief to be alive," he said yesterday.

"After I caught that bug from an oyster in Barbados my leg was so badly ulcerated that I needed a skin graft.

"They did a first skin graft and told me I'd need a second. It was when I went in for this second graft that doctors found I had contracted MRSA, which had got in through a tiny area of my leg."

MRSA kills 1,000 Health Service patients a year but often shows no symptoms in those who have it.

"All the people that were close to me were tested and none of them had it," said Mr Winner who was discharged from hospital on Friday.

"They also swabbed all the nurses that visited me at home."

The illness Mr Winner contracted in Barbados was caused by vibrio vulnificus.

Belonging to the bacterial family that causes cholera, it is responsible for 95 per cent of all seafood-related deaths.

Victims suffer vomiting, diarrhoea, stomach pain and blistering. The director's symptoms were more severe because the bacteria entered his bloodstream.

His liver condition and diabetes also weakened his body's resistance to the disease.

Mr Winner was flown back to Britain in an emergency air ambulance arranged by his friend Philip Green, the retail billionaire.

He says he would have died had he stayed any longer in the Caribbean hospital he was being treated at.

Mr Winner said the best-case scenario there would have been for him to have had his leg amputated.

He recently became engaged to his long-time partner Geraldine Lynton-Edwards, 66.

"It has taken me 71 years to get engaged - so don't hold your breath for the marriage," he joked.

They met in 1957 when she was 16. "I like taking care of him," she says. "You do if you love someone. Yes I love all the parties and the Barbados thing, but that honestly isn't what I am about."

Mr Winner made the Death Wish series of films and has recently appeared in insurance advertisements using the catchline "Calm down dear".