Hospital admits deaths due to fungus exposure
 
 

MELBOURNE’S leading cancer hospital has admitted that three of its patients died from being exposed to a fungus in its intensive care unit, but has played down fears of any further deaths.

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, in East Melbourne, said an investigation was started into the patient deaths, which happened over a six-month period and were caused by exposure to the fungus aspergillus.

All three patients were treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit where the fungus was detected on May 31.
The fungus poses a grave risk to people whose immune systems are suppressed, such as cancer patients, but is generally not a risk for healthy people.

The cancer centre’s chief executive, Craig Bennett, said aspergillus was found after a patient being treated for advanced cancer in the ICU died in May from aspergillosis.

The condition, which usually affects the lungs, can develop when people inhale spores from aspergillus fungus, which is found in soil, compost heaps and water.

The cancer centre’s head of infectious diseases, Dr Monica Slavin, said the hospital had since checked patient records and found that two other patients treated in the ICU had also died from aspergillosis in the past six months.
“We looked back over the past 12 months to see if there were any other cases or episodes of aspergillosis which might have been linked to the intensive care (unit),” Dr Slavin said.

“We were able to identify two other cases and those patients died.”

It was the second health scare for the hospital in 24 hours, after it confirmed a day earlier that low levels of legionella had been found in one of its cooling towers.
 
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