DEAD pigeons were being found in a hospital at the centre of infection concerns years before action was taken to address the issue, an inquiry has heard.
The Scottish Hospitals Inquiry was told that as early as 2016, pest controllers were being called to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow to remove dead pigeons from plant rooms, where air handling units linked to the ventilation system were located.
The inquiry was shown part of a survey by cleaning firm GP Environmental from March 2017, which stated “ledges, beams, walls, floors and walkways of the plant rooms” had “a heavy build-up” of pigeon droppings.
Another GP Environmental report from 2018, relating to sanitisation work in a plant room, said: “All pipe lagging will need replaced due to damage from pigeon fouling.”
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Karen Connelly, who became general manager of estates and facilities at the hospital in 2018, having previously worked there as part of a project team until 2015, told the inquiry she had not been aware of these reports, but that the pigeon problem at the hospital was “well known”.
The former facilities manager, whose team was responsible for pest control, said it was not until January 2019 that she became aware pigeons were getting into plant rooms.
She said shortly before this, she became aware of a potential link between pigeon droppings and Cryptococcosis, which had been identified by the hospital’s Internal Medicine Training team.
Cryptococcosis is a fungal infection that can spread to humans from pigeon droppings.
Up until this point, she said, she thought pigeons posed a health and safety risk of “slipping, and also from an aesthetic point of view it looks dreadful as well”.
The inquiry is currently investigating the construction of the QEUH campus in Glasgow, which includes the Royal Hospital for Children.
It was launched in the wake of deaths linked to infections, including that of 10-year-old Milly Main.
GP Environmental was instructed to carry out a survey of the problem, and on January 8 2019 it reported a “significant feral pigeon infestation across the site at the QEUH, Glasgow”.
The report added: “The sheer level of pigeon numbers are now posing a significant health and safety issue in many locations of the site.”
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Connelly said she then visited the plant rooms, saying in her statement to the inquiry: “We found evidence of pigeon infestation and pigeon guano. This was my first visit to the plant room since the concerns were raised.”
She said she instructed GP Environmental to put together “a programme of work to clean every plant room within the hospital site, and to install proofing or block up any gaps in the buildings that pigeons may be able to access”.
She agreed with counsel to the inquiry Craig Connal KC that the reference in the report to health and safety issues was a “surprise”, adding she had not seen that in other reports from GP Environmental but she did not question it.
She explained: “I just assumed that because of aesthetically, how bad it looked, about possible slips and trips and falls, but also the fact that there had been that connection to the recent outbreaks in the wards”.
She said after starting clean-up work, GP Environmental was “on site daily for a period of weeks, if not months”, and she was shown photographs of pigeon guano in a variety of locations around the site.
In her statement to the inquiry, Connelly conceded: “Possibly in hindsight we could have had regular inspections of the plant rooms and other inaccessible areas carried out by pest control companies, which may have prevented the problem arising to such a level.”
The inquiry also heard that while all pest control issues were handled by the central facilities team and recorded on a single system, they did not analyse reports of infestations to identify trouble spots.
Connelly told the inquiry: “Whether we had any analysis done in terms of what the make-up of all the calls were, I don’t remember us doing that.”
The inquiry, taking place before Lord Brodie in Edinburgh, continues.
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