Hospitals inquiry: Child cancer patient given drug due to 'dirty hospital'

A mother was told by US medics that her cancer patient son was on a specific drug as he was being treated at a "dirty hospital" in Glasgow.

The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry heard Karen Stirrat's son was three when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

From February 2019, he was treated at the Royal Hospital for Children and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

But that April the toddler travelled to Florida for proton beam therapy.

In her witness statement to the SHI in Edinburgh, Ms Stirrat said doctors asked for a list of her son's medication when the family arrived in the US.

She recalled that when she read out the drugs and came to Posaconazole the two doctors "just looked at each other" and asked why he was on that.

Ms Stirrat, who gave evidence remotely, told them she had been informed it was part of his chemotherapy regime.

• Hospitals inquiry: What is being investigated?

• Criminal probe over Milly Main hospital death

She added: "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."

The following day she met one of the nurses looking after her son and asked her about the drug.

Karen Stirrat gave evidence to the inquiry remotely

Ms Stirrat said: "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 the staff in Florida told her that UK doctors had advised that her son should be taken off the Posacanazole immediately but that he would have to start taking it again when he returned to the UK.

Back in Glasgow, Ms Stirrat asked a nurse at the QEUH why he was on Posaconazole and was told it was "because of the building".

She also said another nurse told her it was "due to the climate we live in".

More from the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry

The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow is Scotland's biggest hospital

• Mum told her son 'safer at home', inquiry hears

• Boy isolated in 'disgusting hospital', inquiry told

• Child 'safer at another hospital', inquiry told

• 'Secret' drugs for child cancer patient, inquiry told

• Hospital conditions likened to 'third world country'

• Mother says daughter's hospital death was 'murder'

• Boy's deadly infection 'came from hospital drains'

• Hospital building 'almost killed our son'

Alastair Duncan QC, lead counsel, asked about the impact the environmental problems have had on her family.

She told the inquiry "we don't trust the hospital" and said learning about the problems when she was thousands of miles away was a major issue.

Mrs Stirrat added: "I think, for us, the biggest thing that stood out really 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 right away made us distrust the hospital, and then having no explanation as to why when we came back to the UK. The trust is gone."

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

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde are due to give their evidence at a later stage.

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

Its opening was delayed due to concerns over the ventilation system.

The inquiry, chaired by Lord Brodie, continues.