The Scottish government must publish up-to-date patient safety reviews for every ward at the super-hospital at the heart of the “worst scandal in the history of the Scottish parliament”, Anas Sarwar has said.
The Scottish Labour leader was speaking alongside families of children and adults who died after contracting infections while undergoing cancer treatment at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital (QEUH) campus in Glasgow.
Friday is the final day of hearings in the six-year public inquiry ordered by the former health secretary Jeane Freeman into the design and construction of the hospitals launched after deaths linked to infections in the water supply and ventilation system.
These included 10-year-old Milly Main, who died in August 2017 after contracting an infection as she recovered from leukaemia treatment and 23-year-old Molly Cuddihy, who died last August after giving evidence at the inquiry in which she said: “I was made sicker by the environment.”
Sarwar challenged the Scottish government to “publish, in full, the validation [patient safety review] of every ward and every unit in the QEUH campus”, as the inquiry heard there was “precious little” to show that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has learned from its mistakes.
The former shadow health spokesperson, who has campaigned with affected families for years, told reporters that the first minister John Swinney’s claim that the Scottish government only became aware of problems at the hospital in March 2018 – despite internal reports raising concerns prior to its opening in April 2015 – was “not credible”.
This was “categorically untrue” Sarwar said, because the serving health secretary must be informed immediately if a red warning is issued at a hospital, as was done in June 2017 at the QEUH. The fact that nothing was done “demonstrates negligence or criminal incompetence”, he said. Sarwar has already called for a corporate manslaughter investigation, in which the health board has been named as a suspect, to expand to include then serving government ministers.
And, after the health board earlier this week revealed that the building was not ready to open but “pressure was applied to open … on time and on budget”, Sarwar said the question remains “who applied the pressure and why” – after an internal report a few weeks before opening warned of a high infection risk for immunocompromised children.
Also speaking at the press conference, Milly’s mother, Kimberly Darroch, said she was appealing directly to the health board to “finally do the right thing. Admit where, when and why it went wrong … We need to prevent this from ever happening again.”
She said the Scottish government’s inaction “failed us and our children”. And she thanked three senior doctors who on Thursday described how they had been belittled and dismissed by hospital management when they raised initial concerns about infection control problems with the water and ventilation systems in the new super-hospital.
“Thank you for showing courage, resilience and for standing up for our children and loved ones when no one else would,” said Darroch.
The Scottish health secretary, Neil Gray, said: “The evidence before the Scottish hospitals inquiry clearly indicates that the Scottish government was not made aware of issues at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital campus until March 2018.
“The government brought forward the public inquiry so that families – some of whom I have met, and to whom I pay tribute for their work and their diligence following the trauma that they have undoubtedly experienced – can get answers to the questions that they are posing.
“It is because we have instigated a public inquiry that, I believe, we are getting to the truth, and it is right that Lord Brodie now be given the space to consider all the evidence.”
