Right from the start, this story captured the hearts of our readers.

It wasn't just that so many were dying. Nor that it was happening in a place where people put trust in professionals to help make them better. Or that people who had worked hard all their lives had paid for the very organizations that were now letting them down in the twilight of their lives.

In the end, it was that no one seemed to care.

In May, we first reported that patients at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington were sick and dying from a superbug found in the hospital called C. difficile. There had been a few earlier stories about a C. diff outbreak in Burlington, but no one knew how bad it was until the hospital informed the public that 177 cases had been discovered -- and 91 people had died.

A team of Spectator journalists, led by senior reporter Joan Walters and including reporters Denise Davy, Carmela Fragomeni, and Naomi Powell, have been working on the story ever since.

Out Of Control, Tracking A Killer -- The Superbug C. difficile, a five-part series begins today. And as their investigation reveals, it was not limited to Jo Brant but was part of a larger problem overtaking the entire Ontario hospital system, and had likely moved here from a gigantic Quebec outbreak.

"It is a sorry tale of postponement, ignorance, failure to act, failure to heed recommendations and learn the lessons of other outbreaks and deaths all over the place," says Conservative Opposition Leader John Tory, who along with this newspaper has been calling for a public inquiry into the debacle right from the start.

An independent tally by The Spectator shows at least 460 patients at 22 of Ontario's 157 hospitals have died from C. diff since 2006. "Hospitals that have disclosed their deaths and outbreaks have done so voluntarily to us over the months since May," says Walters. "And Jo Brant, which eventually disclosed all facts publicly, now says it must be one of the safest hospitals in the province."

But there is much more to this story than statistics. It is about people. Meet Elliott (Whitey) Allen, one of the first Jo Brant patients to die of C. diff. Or Ellen Walker, who at 90 was one of the oldest. Or 20-year-old Fielding Horan, who swears he will never go to hospital again. And Joanna Nagy, who three times asked the coroner's office for an autopsy on the death of her partner, and three times was denied.

Our team has read thousands of documents, talked to hundreds of people and interviewed medical experts from around the world. You won't want to miss finding out what they discovered.

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Canada's in the middle of an election, and at The Spectator we are working hard to bring you local and national coverage every day. Election editor Nicole MacIntyre has planned special features for the next several weeks. Today we start a feature we are calling The Mac Grade. We have asked three Mac profs to grade the political leaders each week. Watch for other features such as If I Were Prime Minster, Election Flashback and The Election Lens as well as local and national coverage. And don't forget our website thespec.com

David Estok is The Spectator's editor-in-chief. editorfeedback@thespec.c om