Deaths of two more patients at Glasgow hospital under investigation | Scotland
The deaths of seven patients at Glasgow’s iconic super hospital are now being investigated, prosecutors have confirmed.
Two more deaths are being investigated after cancer patients, mostly children, contracted infections linked to the Queen Elizabeth university hospital’s (QEUH) contaminated water supply and ventilation system, it has been revealed; It comes after Scottish Labor publicly revealed further evidence that political pressure had been applied to open the campus in April 2015, just before the general election.
The Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service (COPFS) said on Saturday that the cases of Molly Cuddihy, 23, and former Scottish government civil servant Andrew Slorance were among those being examined and promised to keep their families informed of progress.
Cuddihy, who was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer when he was 15, was treated at the royal children’s hospital and the adjacent QEUH, part of a six-year public inquiry that reached its final stages last month. He died last August, his organs irreparably weakened by powerful drugs used to fight infections as well as cancer treatment.
The inquest heard devastating new evidence from the medical board, including an admission that serious infections in 84 child cancer patients, including two who died, were likely caused by a contaminated water system.
COPFS had previously confirmed investigations were ongoing into four deaths, including 10-year-old Milly Main, who died in 2017, two other children and 73-year-old Gail Armstrong, who died in 2019 and was treated for an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she contracted a fungal infection often associated with pigeon droppings.
In addition, COPFS said on Saturday it had received a report regarding the 2021 death of Anthony Dynes, 65, who was treated at QEUH for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The health board offered a “sincere and unreserved apology” to those affected and insisted it was a “very different organisation” to the one involved in the design and construction of the hospital a decade ago.
The three senior microbiologists who first raised the alarm about infection control problems said in the final days of the inquiry that they still had “significant concerns” about the extent to which the necessary changes were encouraged by senior management.
In response to the minister’s first question last Thursday, Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar said he had “damning evidence” from minutes of meetings between Glasgow health board officials and the Scottish government that “political pressure” was being applied to open the new hospital before it was ready.
This was previously rejected by first minister John Swinney and former first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Sarwar told MSPs: “The decision to open the hospital early led to a decade of lies, deceit and cover-ups, bullying and gaslighting of staff, lying to families and denial of the truth, and infections leading to the death of children and possibly adults too – all because politics was put before patient safety.”
