Yesterday, his widow, Mavis, 67, said: "I wish I hadn’t let him go in for the transfusion. He had health problems before then but he lived with them and was okay up to the point where he went to hospital. It is heartbreaking." Mrs Burton-Pye, who lived with her husband in the Norfolk Broads town of Acle, added: "He had just gone into hospital for some blood and picked this bug up. It is absolutely diabolical that he caught this thing on just a routine visit. I just can’t believe he has gone. It won’t sink in."
She said Mr Burton-Pye’s family – including five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren – had been devastated by his death.
Bosses at the hospital, which has been infected with the virulent "027" strain of the superbug, admit it could take 12 weeks to get the outbreak under control. The 17 deaths, almost all of people aged 65 and over, have occurred since December. Sixteen more patients have been infected but survived.
The hospital has invested an extra £400,000 to tackle the outbreak but Wendy Slaney, the acting chief executive of the hospital, said it could take months to bring under control.