A six-year-old girl, who had her hands and feet amputated after contracting meningitis, has caught MRSA.

Olivia Clarke, from Cannock, Staffordshire, was struck down by the so-called superbug as she recovered from surgery to remove tissue damaged by blood poisoning.

Her grandmother Christine Bill said she was "devastated" by the news and questioned standards of cleanliness at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire where Olivia is being treated.

Mrs Bill said: "She's a sixyearold girl. She's fought her way back from death with meningitis.

"She then had to have a quadruple amputation, then a week later she had to have skin grafts."

Mrs Bill, aged 48, said she and her daughter, 26-year-old Rachel Nixon, planned to present Prime Minister Tony Blair with a petition calling for greater hospital cleanliness.

She said the family were told the youngster had contracted an infection before skin-graft operations last week and tests have confirmed that Olivia has MRSA.

Mrs Bill said her granddaughter was being treated with antibiotics at the hospital in Stoke-on-Trent and was in no danger.

She went on: "The doctors, they have done their best. They saved my granddaughter's life, there's no doubt about that.

"But there are big doubts and big question marks over cleanliness and I am angry.

"You've got a little girl whose got open wounds from the beginning. She was never treated with gloves, the nurses never had an apron on or used that magic gel by the doors.

"Nurses were coming in messing with tubes, checking drips, checking wounds.

"Then, yesterday, the hospital was told the story had gone to the Press. I went this morning and I have never seen a change like it. It was like someone had gone in and spring-cleaned the room."

The hospital said: "We confirm Olivia has an MRSA infection. There are a number of places she may have acquired it.

"It may have been at the hospital, during time spent in another hospital, or during time in the community, where the organism is carried by many people."