Hospital Infection Lawsuit Filed After Mold Exposure During Renovations Causes 3 Children to Die
Published: February 5th, 2009 • Comments: 2
The families of three children with cancer who died after developing fungal infections in the hospital, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Florida that alleges renovations being performed at the facility during the months before the children died, stirred up the mold that caused their infections.
The hospital infection lawsuit was filed in Hillsborough County Circuit Court in Tampa, Florida against St. Joseph’s Hospital. It was filed by the families of a 5 year old who died on April 16, 2008, a 2 year old who died on May 3, 2008 and a 9 year old who died on May 13, 2008.
According to the Tampa Bay Tribune, all three children had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is a cancer of the white blood cells. While one of the patients was still fighting the disease, the other two had gone into remission before they developed the fungal infection.
The children were patients at the pediatric oncology ward on the second floor at the Clyde Perry Cancer Institute of St. Joseph’s while renovations were being done between January and March 2008. The hospital was expanding their outpatient area on the floor below the children’s rooms.
The air conditioning system could have brought dust particles into their rooms and the lawsuit indicates that the children were sometimes transported right through the area undergoing construction.
The wrongful death infection lawsuit alleges that the hospital failed to properly seal off the area undergoing renovations and which exposed the children to harmful airborne pathogenic fungi from moderate to high dust levels.
The children were already in a weakened condition due to the underlying cancer, and the families claim that this made the children more susceptible to fungal infections.
Comment by Evan on 6 February 2009:
This is a serious concern for a lot of hospitals. Although many facilities have cut down on expansions due to the economic climate, all of them are still doing renovations. Even minor fixes require extensive involvement with infection control to avoid this kind of situation. There is a post on this site (http://blogs.hcpro.com/osha/2009/02/hospital-renovations-cited-in-lawsuit/) addressing this infection control concern, including links to a live audio this month about infection control during renovations.
Comment by Hope on 2 February 2010:
my baby died nov 9/09 from a flesh eating bacteria and he was a patient in the hospital, he was in the hospital continually since may/09 and he got the infection in his penis, how could this have happened? my questions have never been answered and they have ignored my phone calls, they are hoping i will go away. my baby also has ALL and he was ok until a week up to his death and i kept telling them he was fevered and not himself but they kept pooh pooh me , he’ll get some tyleol and it will help, my baby died and i am devastated, please some one i need some advice…i know i live in canada so who can i see or talk to?