EVERY year 5,000 people are killed by "superbugs", the most common being Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). The bugs also contribute to a further 15,000, and that figure is rising.

A Public Health report says that, in the first half of this year, there were 3,500 cases of MRSA confirmed in our hospitals, compared with a total of 4,700 for the whole of 2001.

Our British hospitals, once the envy of the world, have higher infection rates than poorer nations like Greece, and in the UK you are 15 times more likely to contract the bug, compared to the next safest continents, which include Sweden and The Netherlands.

The spread of this bug has been aided by the doling out of antibiotics over the last 50 years, but what is more shocking and shameful is the fact that modern hospitals are just not clean enough, and are breeding grounds for infection, with filthy wards and many medical staff failing to observe basic hygiene practices inbetween patients.

Since the early 90s, MRSA infections in hospitals have soared from one per cent to 45 per cent -- alarming news indeed.

Managers and administrators have grown higher in status each year, slowly erasing the need of the ward matron. Gone are meticulous inspections and cleanliness levels, and in are the contract cleaners -- and how standards have plummeted. Just ask anyone who has recently visited a hospital.

Some hospitals may argue a high patient turnover, but many just fall prey to basic hygiene disregard. All this is a damning indictment on the state of this country; standards in all areas of society are slipping every year, and our country is falling down around us.

Tony Blair and his inept Ministers should be working hard to get this country back on its feet, as opposed to doling out much needed Lottery funding to undeserving organisations who only wish to undermine our own country.

Get your priorities right, Mr Blair, and think of your own people for a change.

Carl Fisher

Crompton Way

Bolton