A hospital failed to inform a family that their dying mother had MRSA.

Jennie Nicol said she only discovered her 84-year-old mother Joan Oborne had contracted the deadly infection when she received a death certificate weeks after her mother had died.

She is angry staff at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath did not warn that her mother had MRSA, even though staff knew she had the infection two days after she was admitted.

Mrs Nicol and family held a daily vigil by Mrs Oborne's bedside, holding her hand and comforting her, but no one told them they could have been helping to spread MRSA.

Mrs Nicol said: "MRSA was actually put on the death certificate as a cause of death but that was the first we heard of it.

"We were never told she had it and they had ten days to tell us - all the time people were coming in and out, putting themselves at risk.

"We could even have spread the infection."

Mrs Nicol and her sister Rosemarie considered legal action against Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Princess Royal.

The trust has the highest rate for MRSA infection in the country.

It said Mrs Oborne had the superbug before she was admitted to the hospital.

But the family said they had no idea she was infected as they visited her every day.

Mrs Nicol said: "Families are losing people they need not lose and nothing seems to be being done about it."

Mrs Oborne had suffered from leg ulcers for years and was being treated by a district nurse before she suffered a reaction to antibiotics on July 19 last year.

Mrs Nicol accompanied her mother to the hospital's accident and emergency unit, only to see her discharged within hours.

She said: "The paramedics said her blood pressure was very low but A&E wasn't busy. I think they had one patient waiting and the doctor was sitting with his feet up on the desk.

"They barely looked at her and told us to take her home, even though she was barely coherent.

"The next day our GP sent her straight back in again and she was sent up to the intensive care unit."

After a week, Mrs Nicol said her mother was recovering well, sitting up in bed and reading a newspaper.

However, a couple of days later she began deteriorating rapidly, until finally doctors said there was no hope for the pensioner and advised turning off her life-support.

Mrs Nicol said: "We kept saying: 'Why's she going down hill?'

"No one ever said to us she's actually got MRSA.

"I just don't understand why they didn't tell us.

"She shouldn't have gone like that.

"The day they switched off her support machine one of the catheters had come loose and her bottom sheet was saturated in urine.

"Can you imagine how I felt when I then found out by the death registrar that MRSA was the cause of death when we had been told nothing about it?"

A spokeswoman for the trust said a routine swab showed Mrs Oborne had already contracted the superbug before she had arrived at the hospital.

Tests returned positive within two days of her admission on July 20. Mrs Oborne died on August 2.

A spokeswoman said: "We are sorry that Mrs Oborne's family is unhappy with the care she received and would like to extend our sincere condolences to them for their loss.

"Our policy is to inform the closest relative as soon as possible of an infection. If that wasn't followed we apologise.

"It is not trust policy to isolate patients with MRSA and this process has been supported by independent infection control experts appointed by the Surrey and Sussex Strategic Health Authority."

Figures released by the Department of Health in February revealed patients in Brighton and Haywards Heath were more likely to catch MRSA than anywhere else in the country.

The trust has an infection rate more than twice the national average and the worst in England.