NON-urgent operations have been cancelled and five wards closed to new admissions to control a virus that has hit York District Hospital.

An action plan has been launched by specialists from the hospital's infection control team to protect patients, visitors and staff from the virus, which causes upset stomachs and diarrhoea.

Hospital general manager Colin Watts today said all elective non-emergency operations had been cancelled until after Easter.

But he stressed that people with outpatient and day-case appointments should still come in, saying they had been inundated with calls from people who thought the hospital was completely closed.

Mr Watts thought about 20 operations a day would be lost, ranging from varicose veins to hernias, though not necessarily cataract operations, most of which were now day cases.

Pat Dixon, a Royal College of Nursing steward who works on one of the wards closed to new patients, said there was nothing the hospital could have done to prevent the outbreak, adding: "It's a bug we get most years."

She said about a third of the staff on her ward had been affected in some way, and praised colleagues for working extra shifts to cope. "The staff are being absolutely brilliant," she said.

Tests have identified the main cause of the outbreak as Norwalk virus, which is sometimes known as winter vomiting disease or gastric flu.

Hospital general manager, Susan Acott, said the illness was first confirmed there last week. She had hoped they had it under control but then it spread to two more wards.

They currently had about 30 confirmed cases who were all on the five closed wards. Miss Acott said they had considered moving all the affected patients on to one ward, but had been advised by experts that moving them might help to spread the airborne virus. It was not particularly serious but spread easily.

"We have experienced outbreaks of this in the winter before. The oddness of this situation is that we are into the spring and it's resurfacing," she said.

Patients on the five closed wards who are awaiting discharge to a nursing or residential home are being kept in to stop it spreading.

Hospital medical director Dr Mike Porte said: "The steps we are taking are prudent ones designed to safeguard the health of patients, visitors and staff."