Transplant patients die from fungal infection after surgery at major Queensland hospital

Two hospital patients have died and three others have contracted fungal infections after receiving heart transplants at a major Queensland healthcare facility.

Muhammad Hussain was one of the two men who died.

The 55-year-old general practitioner had a heart transplant in May before he developed a fungal infection.

He was treated for it but died on September 20. His family say they were not told he contracted the infection.

“It’s not supposed to be easy, but I think this development of finding out what has been going on at the hospital while we were there tending to my father every day in the background, to find out other people were also so ill, it’s been quite shocking,” his daughter Muskaan Hussain said.

A second heart transplant patient, Adam Retnock, died on Friday as a result of an infection.

In parliament today Queensland’s Health Minister apologised to the families of the patients, who said they were not clearly communicated with about the cluster.

“It’s absolutely not acceptable that patients found out via the news, and the head of the transplant unit assured me that he had spoken directly to every patient and if that has not happened then I want to sincerely apologise to those families – it’s not good enough,” Shannon Fentiman said.

Two clinical reviews into the deadly fungal cluster outbreak are underway because while these types of infections are common in transplant units where patients are immunocompromised, the high number raised alarm bells.

“I’m not trivialising this at all we are concerned and that’s why this investigation is being undertaken,” Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said.

“It’s very complex”.

Three different strains of the fungi have been identified so far and testing is underway to see if they are genetically linked.

The storage area where elevated levels of mould were detected has undergone a deep clean and transplant patients are being given anti-fungal antibiotics as a precaution.