NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has made a dramatic U-turn by admitting that contaminated water at a Glasgow super-hospital caused serious infections in child cancer patients, linked to four deaths. The admission came in closing submissions to the Scottish hospitals inquiry, set up in 2020 to examine the design and construction of the Queen Elizabeth university hospital and the Royal hospital for children.
The health board accepted it was 'more likely than not' that the children's infections had 'a connection to the state of the hospital water system'. It further stated that 'on the balance of probabilities, there is a causal connection between some infections suffered by patients and the hospital environment, in particular the water system'.
Ten-year-old Milly Main died in August 2017 after contracting an infection while recovering from leukaemia treatment. Her mother, Kimberly Darroch, welcomed the admission but said it should have come much earlier. 'As a mother, I’ve spent six years fighting for answers that should have been given at the very beginning,' she told BBC Scotland News.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called the U-turn a 'turning point' and urged a corporate homicide investigation, which is already under way, to be expanded to include SNP ministers. Writing in the Scottish Mail on Sunday, he accused politicians of a 'cover-up' and described the situation as 'one of the worst failures in modern Scottish public life'.
Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'We established a statutory public inquiry so that families could get answers… therefore it would be inappropriate to comment any further at this time.' NHSGGC spokesperson stated: 'We remain fully committed to supporting the inquiry in its investigations.'
