Hospital Balcony Blamed for Fungal Outbreak

0:00It's March 27th. Welcome to Sydney News Today, powered by AI, I'm Corey with the story. A new report from New South Wales Health points to a balcony at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as the likely source of a serious fungal outbreak. Last November in December, six organ transplant patients on Ward 9 East picked up Aspergillosis, a mold infection. Two of them later died, and a third is still in intensive care three months after diagnosis. The outbreak happened during construction on the hospital's $900 million redevelopment right next to that balcony. Investigators couldn't pinpoint one exact cause, but evidence shows spores from the balcony area and nearby work got airborne, putting vulnerable, patients at high risk. These patients were already immunocompromised after their transplants, making them easy targets for the mold, which is common in soil and buildings. But usually harmless to healthy people. One patient had spent 150 days in the hospital before the infection hit just weeks after a

1:00liver transplant. In response, health officials admitted they failed to properly run their fungi monitoring program. They've accepted all four recommendations from the review, including more frequent air sampling and a new fungal surveillance committee to prevent. This in the future. Sydney local health district says they're fully committed to these changes, aiming to protect patients and families from similar scares moving forward.