Alarm was raised on ‘dirty’ Scots hospital by doctors in Florida

A MOTHER discovered her son had been put on medicine to prevent infections from a ‘dirty’ hospital while he was in Florida for cancer treatment.

Karen Stirrat’s son was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive brain tumour aged three and treated at the Royal Hospital for Children and Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) in Glasgow.

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry is investigating the construction of the hospitals after issues at the site were linked to the deaths of two children.

Mrs Stirrat’s son had surgery and chemotherapy from February 2019 before being sent to a centre in Florida in April 2019 for proton beam therapy.

In her witness statement to the inquiry, Mrs Stirrat said that when they arrived in Florida, doctors asked for a list of the medication her son was on. It included anti-fungal medicine posaconazole.

Mrs Stirrat stated when she read out posaconazole the two doctors ‘looked at each other’ and asked why he was on that. She said she had been told it was part of his chemotherapy regime.

Mrs Stirrat said: ‘One of the doctors told me it wasn’t part of chemotherapy treatment and he said he was going to call the UK to find out why he was on it.

‘We met Lacey, one of the nurses looking after him, the next day and spoke to her about the posaconazole. She told us that the doctors from the QEUH told her the reason he was on posaconazole wasn’t anything to do with his chemotherapy treatment and that he was on it because of the hospital.

‘I asked her what she meant and she told us it’s the dirty hospital. It’s the dirty water and the building in Glasgow.’

She said staff in Florida told her UK doctors had advised her son should be taken off the posaconazole straight away but that he would have to start taking the medication again when he returned to the UK.

Mrs Stirrat said when she returned to the UK she asked a nurse at the QEUH why he was on posaconazole and was told it was ‘because of the building’.

The mother gave evidence to the inquiry remotely yesterday. Alastair Duncan, QC, lead counsel to the inquiry, asked what impact problems with the hospital environment have had on the family.

Mrs Stirrat told the inquiry: ‘We don’t trust the hospital.’

She added: ‘The biggest thing that stood out was being lied to and, in a foreign hospital, finding out that you have a dirty hospital with dirty water, finding out that your son was on a medication that he should not have been on.

‘That made us distrust the hospital, and then having no explanation as to why when we came back to the UK. The trust is gone.’

The inquiry is also examining the construction of the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh after its opening was delayed.

An independent review found this year the deaths of two children at the QEUH campus were at least in part the result of infections linked to the hospital environment.

The inquiry, in Edinburgh and chaired by Lord Brodie, continues.