‘Sack the health board’

NICOLA Sturgeon has been told to sack the leadership of the Greater Glasgow health board amid revelations of more deaths due to infections acquired in the city’s biggest hospital.

Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, said he has been told of another child who died from a water borne fungal infection contracted in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Last week, he raised the case of Andrew Slorance, a government adviser, who died in the hospital from aspergillus.

Sarwar said a senior clinician at the hospital told him of a child cancer patient who also contracted aspergillus in the same ward in the hospital as Slorance.

Sarwar told the First Minister: “That child tragically died.”

The First Minister said she would look into the “specific issue raised”. She said there was an independent external review being carried out of Slorence’s case notes, and more generally for aspergillus infections she added “the Health Secretary has asked Healthcare Improvement Scotland to carry out a wider review”.

He said another clinician, who he said was afraid of being targeted if they spoke out, said another child has died in the hospital in the last two months from the same water borne infection that killed Milly Main four years ago.

He said to the First Minister: “Act now, stop infections and save lives.”

Sturgeon said: “When concerns are raised it is important for real serious investigations to establish the facts.”

The Labour leader said: “Milly Main died in 2017. I’ve been raising this for years.”

He said the First Minister was “hiding behind process”.

He said: “The First Minister has been in charge from start to finish. The health board has failed, the Scottish Government Oversight Team has failed, the Scottish Government has failed.

“Sack the leadership of the health board today, sack the oversight team.” He asked: “How many more families will have to be devastated before you do the right thing?”

The First Minister replied: “Sacking a health board doesn’t change overnight the practice in a hospital.

“It is not right to say no action has been taken over four years.”