Widow Says Husband Contracted Scabies in Hospital and Died With It Listed as Secondary Cause

A woman from west Wales has described how her 90-year-old husband spent his final weeks covered in a highly contagious skin infestation he picked up while being treated in hospital, leaving her unable to hold his hand without wearing protective gloves.

Kate Baxter's husband Paul, whom she had been married to for more than four decades, suffered a stroke in December 2025. Four months before his death in June, he contracted scabies at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen, according to his widow.

Hywel Dda health board, which runs the hospital, said it was taking additional steps to limit the spread of scabies and was concentrating on keeping its hospitals and other healthcare settings as clean as possible.

Scabies is caused by microscopic mites that burrow beneath the skin and is passed on through close skin-to-skin contact. It produces intense itching that tends to be worse at night. A more serious form, known as crusted scabies, can affect people whose immune systems are already weakened and may involve very large numbers of mites and eggs.

Kate Baxter said her husband began complaining of itching in February, but that doctors initially believed the problem might be a reaction to his medication. She said it took 12 weeks and six days before he was finally diagnosed in May, by which time the condition had developed into the crusted form.

"He was suffering. He said to me, 'my back itches' and when I rubbed his back, his skin was coming off like sand," she said, adding: "To have him die like that wasn't good."

Paul, who was described by his wife as bright, funny and curious about the world even in old age, also developed pneumonia. Kate Baxter believes the crusted scabies left his immune system weakened, reducing his ability to fight off the lung infection. He died on 8 June, and crusted scabies is recorded as a secondary cause of death on his death certificate.

She said the undertaker later told her that a tag reading "environmental hazard" had been attached to her husband's body while it was in the morgue, indicating that the infestation was still active on him. "You don't expect your husband to go into hospital with one thing and then come out via the morgue as a health hazard," she said.

Kate Baxter also caught scabies from her husband and described the experience as dreadful. She said the itching felt like something lodged in the middle of her back that she simply could not get rid of, with her skin constantly painful. The mites were most active at night, she said, when she would feel sudden sharp stabbing pains in her leg or back that seemed to multiply across her body.

She said the infection cast a shadow over Paul's final weeks and robbed the couple of the quality of the time they had left together. If he had not caught scabies, she believes his immune system might not have been compromised and he might have been able to fight off the pneumonia that ultimately contributed to his death.

While visiting her dying husband, Kate Baxter was given personal protective equipment similar to what medical staff wore during the Covid pandemic. "Holding somebody's hand with gloves is not good," she said.

After Paul's death, she wrote to Hywel Dda health board to complain about how long it had taken for him to be diagnosed. In his reply, health board chief executive Phil Kloer said no evidence had been found that concerns about the rash were ignored, or that there had been a failure to seek an appropriate medical review. He added that the board could not determine with certainty whether the rash could have been prevented.

Kate Baxter said she was dissatisfied with that response and felt the health board had glossed over the issues. In her view, doctors should have recognised sooner that her husband was not simply suffering from a skin condition.

The case comes amid wider concern about scabies in the region. Glangwili Hospital's Steffan ward was closed in July to deal with an outbreak, followed by the Cadog ward in September; both have since reopened. The Teifi ward has remained closed since 21 September. This week, Hywel Dda also shut two wards at Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli because of scabies.

Figures published for Wales show there were more than 27,000 reported consultations through the Common Ailments Service for the condition last year, compared with 4,810 two years earlier, suggesting a sharp rise in demand for help.

Hywel Dda confirmed that some treatments had been cancelled as a result of the ward closures, and said anyone affected would be contacted proactively once it became clear that a scheduled appointment might need to be changed. Its director of public health, Ardiana Gjini, said the board was working in partnership with other agencies, including Public Health Wales, to manage the situation.

For Kate Baxter, the wider statistics offer little comfort. She said her husband went into hospital to be treated for a stroke and came out with an infestation that marked his final days, and she wants the health board to acknowledge that more could have been done to identify and treat the condition sooner.