BOSSES at Glasgow’s troubled Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) moved to try and reassure parents after it was revealed that a child with a hospital-acquired infection died last week.
News of the latest fatality came a day after parents of children being treated at QEUH said they had “no confidence” in bosses at the
£842 million super-hospital.
Earlier in the week, a report leaked by a whistleblower said NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde had been told that areas of the flagship campus were at a “high risk” of infection before opening in 2015.
Another two reports, also leaked to Labour MSP Anas Sarwar, suggest issues were still pervasive at the hospital in 2017 and 2018.
Milly Main, 10, passed away in 2017 from an infection linked to the hospital’s water supply. Her mother says he daughter would still be alive if the board had taken contamination fears properly.
Just weeks before, Mason Djemat, 3, who had been staying on the same ward, which was affected by contaminated water, passed away.
According to a report in the Herald on Sunday, the child died on Monday, November 25.
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They had a hospital-acquired infection and had been moved between wards.
It’s not known if the infection was the cause of death.
Sarwar and Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman, Monica Lennon, met with the parents of children receiving treatment at the site on Saturday.
Sarwar said: “It’s clear that the culture is rotten at the core of the health board.
“It’s clear that there is a culture there of silencing, of bullying and intimidation.
“One thing that needs to be remembered is that none of this would have potentially come to light if it wasn’t for the whistleblower putting their head above the parapet and risking their own job and sharing the information with me.
“It should not rely on a whistleblower, it shouldn’t rely on MSPs, it shouldn’t rely on a free press, although that’s all important, to get truth and answers about what’s happening in our National Health Service and to get transparency for and answers for the parents, but that’s what’s happened in this case.
“I honestly don’t believe that the health board would have acted appropriately if we hadn’t gone public. These are issues that have been raised with management for years and they have failed to act.”
Sarwar also said he believes Health Secretary Jeane Freeman had been “kept in the dark” over the extent of issues at the site.
“I think Jeane Freeman has been kept in the dark on a lot of these issues,” said Sarwar.
“I find it completely unbelievable that the reports that I presented in Parliament on Thursday showing that they knew the water supply was not safe and there was high risk back in 2015 and again in 2017, and then again in 2018, that it was the first time that Jeane Freeman had ever seen these documents and didn’t know they existed.
“If that was a health board being transparent, being open, given what’s happened in the last few weeks, they should have shown that to the Cabinet Secretary and they should have been open and transparent about it.
“The fact that they weren’t shows that there’s still a culture of cover-up, a culture of bullying, a culture of intimidation, and a culture of silences.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Our deepest sympathies go to the family of this patient. It would be inappropriate to comment on any individual’s care. Incident Management Teams meet as part of ongoing care and treatment across our hospitals and are part of good clinical governance procedures.”
Labour and the LibDems have urged Freeman to update MSPs.
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