Baby with heart condition dies from mould exposure at hospital after open heart surgery

A baby with a serious heart condition has died after she received an infection from mould in a Seattle hospital's operating room, her mother says. 

Elizabeth Hutt was born with a heart condition that she battled for the entirety of her six-month-long life. The young child underwent three open heart surgeries, and after the third one is when it's believed she contracted an Aspergillus mould infection in the hospital's operating room. 

The mould in the hospital's operating rooms was first detected in November, around the same time as the child's third surgery. 

It was later determined the infection was contracted from the mould discovered in three of the 14 operating rooms at the hospital in November. The mould came from the hospital's air-handling units in the operating rooms, and 14 patients have developed infections from the mould since 2001, the hospital revealed. Seven of those 14 children have since died from their infections. 

Elizabeth's parents have joined a class action suit against Seattle Children's Hospital in January, which alleges facility managers knew about the mould since 2005 and failed to fix the problem. 

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Source: The Independent, 14 February 2020