THE husband of a former Labour MP has died in hospital of coronavirus – after twice testing negative.

Evan Williams, 79, had been on a general ward at Ysbyty Gwynedd at Bangor before becoming seriously ill, and moved to intensive care and placed on a ventilator.

He died on Good Friday – the day after a further test had been taken which was positive, the result arriving on the day after his death.

On April 14, Mrs Betty Williams, who lives near Penysarn near Caernarfon, said she was pleading with the Welsh Government to send North Wales samples to Liverpool – and not nearly 200 miles away to Cardiff.

“Pull the barriers down, this is a pandemic,” Mrs Williams, who is a former MP for Conwy, demanded.

She added: “There are plans for samples to be analysed in a special laboratory at Glan Clwyd hospital – but not until the end of the month.

"But anything can happen in a fortnight in a fast moving pandemic. I’m getting the energy to fight this although it won’t help my husband. But it might help others from North Wales.”

She said she was pleading with Julie Morgan, deputy to the Health Minister in the Welsh Government, to change the system in which it took two days to obtain sample results.

Mrs Williams said : “I have since found out that they lost the first sample taken, so then they took another.”

She fears staff and patients on the general ward where Mr Williams was treated for a respiratory illness could also have been infected.

The Betsi Cadwaladr health board say they do not comment on individual cases.