My holiday sickness hell cost me my job

A FACTORY worker has told how his first overseas holiday ended in disaster when he contracted salmonella and then lost his job.

Martin Ormiston, 48, went to Tunisia with his partner Janet Horan to celebrate her 60th birthday but fell ill after eating food from the hotel buffet.

He is now considering taking legal action against tour company Thomas Cook.

Mr Ormiston, who lives in Slateford, travelled to the four-star Chich Khan Hotel in Yasmine Hammamet in April for the celebration holiday.

He said the couple's initial impressions of the hotel were good but they grew concerned when they visited the hotel buffet.

Mr Ormiston said: "I saw a cat wandering about, not going into the kitchen but near the buffet, which was a bit unhygienic. I think maybe twice I saw it in the week that we were there.

"Cats can't be near food like that, especially when the food is uncovered. There were birds coming in and out a couple of times as well."

Mr Ormiston said he had also seen food brought out to replenish the buffet and put straight on top of food that had been sitting out for some time. On his return home, medical staff told him the most likely cause of the salmonella was scrambled egg from the buffet.

"We were going to eat outside the hotel, but I said 'Why should we eat outside when we've paid for everything?'," Mr Ormiston said.

The night before the couple were due to return home, Mr Ormiston began to suffer sickness and diarrhoea.

When tests showed he was suffering from salmonella, he was told food safety rules meant he must stay away from his job in a biscuit factory.

He was only given the all-clear six or seven weeks later, by which time he had lost his job. "Losing your income is another problem. Because I was on a temporary contract I didn't have any leg to stand on," he said.

Although now clear of salmonella, he still feels unwell, has been told he also has a helicobacter pylori infection, and is awaiting an endoscopy to investigate further.

"I still have the odd bad day. I've suffered extremely badly with heartburn and I still get the odd stomach cramps.

"I don't feel good at all. You can sometimes wake up in the morning and you feel that bit of depression there with what's happened.

"It's upset me because I liked the hotel and I came back cursing it. We got on well with the staff, the amount of food that was there and the way it was put out looked quite nice, but with the birds flying and the cat I saw out, you change your opinion of it all together."

A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said: "We take all reports of illness very seriously so we were very concerned to hear that Mr Ormiston became unwell whilst on holiday.

"As we have only recently been contacted by Mr Ormiston's solicitors, we are currently undertaking a full investigation."

The hotel's assistant manager, Walid Lakez, said he would discuss the problem immediately with his fellow managers and added: "We've never had a problem in our kitchen and we do tests for temperature in the fridge and so on every day. It is an English company we work with and if we have a bad score we have to close the hotel - they are very strict.

"Also, here in Tunisia they have a lot of controls, so we are very careful about our guests."