Last year, Scottish Water and Health Protection Scotland were called into the children’s hospital and UK experts were consulted after six children developed infections linked to bacteria in the water supply.
READ MORE: Jeane Freeman branded ‘complacent’ after defending hospital infection control following child’s death It follows a catalogue of problems, including contamination of the water supply at the children’s hospital and most recently the death in December of the 10-year-old boy, who was treated for the Cryptoccocus infection, linked to pigeon droppings.
Two other patients are being treated for a separate fungal infection related to Mucor mould, with one described as seriously ill. Ms Freeman yesterday denied she had said “infection control was good enough” at the hospital.
It comes after a 10-year-old boy died at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow after contracting an infection linked to pigeon droppings.
Asked on the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland about the report, Ms Freeman said: “I don’t believe Healthcare Environment Inspectorate have taken it in that way – they follow an independent professionally driven rota.
“That is why, again, that area has been closed while they investigate what happened and those children – cancer patients – are in an additional area of the hospital.” Ms Freeman also gave an update on two patients who were said to have contracted a separate, unrelated fungal infection called Mucor.
The initial Cryptococcus infection is believed to be from pigeon droppings found in a plant room on the hospital’s roof, with the ventilation system at the heart of the review.
Ms Freeman said: “First of all I did not say that I believed the infection control in the hospital was good enough, what I said was that the hospital had undertaken everything that I believed they should have in order to provide additional infection control in the light of both the Cryptococcus and this second unrelated fungal infection.
“I’d also said though that, as you have outlined, we have had more than one instance of infection that has produced first of all the shift of those children who are cancer patients in terms of water and drainage and then the Cryptococcus infection and now the Mucor infection.
“From the bottom of our hearts, we want you to stay.” Few in the UK know or even care how deeply many Germans appear to love, rather than merely respect, the British, probably because the feeling is not reciprocated.