A FIVE-year-old girl who suffered severe burns in an accident at home is now fighting the superbug MRSA.

Now the mother of Shanelle Baker, wants to know why her daughter was sent home from hospital without her being told she had contracted the bug.

Samantha Attrill is calling for an investigation into why she was not told of the illness until a week after her daughter was discharged.

A hospital spokesman explained it can take up to 96 hours to find out the results of routine swabs taken to detect MRSA.

Shanelle spent two-and-a-half weeks in hospital, initially treated at Southampton General Hospital before being transferred to the specialist burns unit at Odstock Hospital in Salisbury.

She was treated for the severe burns to her body when clothing caught fire from a candle.

Her top caught alight as the youngster was about to have a bath. The accident happened last month when Shanelle required a skin graft from her leg to her chest.

Ms Attrill, 22, of Millbrook, is furious she was told her daughter had an MRSA infection by a nurse almost a week after she was discharged.

She said: "The day after she was allowed home, a nurse at the hospital told me she had MRSA. She has been near my sister's newborn baby and around my other two children who could have all easily got it from her.

"I did complain about the hygiene and cleanliness on the ward where Shanelle was staying and I was accused of being rude."

Ms Attrill has now kept Shanelle at her grandmother's house in Redbridge to ensure she is away from the other children, but she wants to know why this has been allowed to happen.

She added: "I have called NHS Direct and my own emergency doctor and they all told me Shanelle should not have been allowed to come home and should have been put in isolation to be treated. The doctors treating Shanelle should have told me she had MRSA, not a nurse."

Ms Attrill said: "They were meant to have given her treatment and taken swabs to check it wasn't getting worse on Friday, but they haven't done anything.

"Her leg is still weeping and she's not had any treatment."

A hospital spokesman confirmed MRSA swabs are taken from burns patients as routine, which can take up to 96 hours for a result, but said it was inappropriate to comment on Shanelle's case. He said: "When there is no evidence of infection and a patient is fit to be discharged, staff will contact either the family at home or the GP if the results from the laboratory show that the patient is carrying MRSA.