A mother has died and hundreds of patients could be infected after hepatitis B was apparently spread by unclean surgical equipment at a hospital.Patients who have received any kind of heart surgery at the hospital in recent months have been informed that they may have contracted the virus.
The woman who died, who has not been named, is believed to have caught the infection from another patient, possibly after surgeons used the same probe during two operations.
A spokesman for Morriston Hospital in South Wales said the patient was treated and discharged as planned after making a ‘good recovery’.
He said: ‘The patient was later newly diagnosed with an acute hepatitis B infection. The patient has sadly since died.’
Hospital chiefs have contacted every patient who underwent an operation in the heart and chest unit over five weeks in March and April.
They suspect a ‘magic eye’ probe put into the throat to take ultrasound pictures of the heart may be the source of the cross-infection. Read More
