Two young cancer patients have died with mould infections at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, NSW Premier Chris Minns confirmed on Monday, as a separate but related crisis continues to shadow the state's public hospital system. The Westmead deaths add to a deepening pattern of environmental failures inside ageing facilities, following an earlier Aspergillus fungal cluster at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital that killed two adult transplant patients and left others seriously ill.
"I'm devastated for them," Minns told reporters, according to 7News. "It's obviously terrible and our condolences are with those families." He and Health Minister Ryan Park have both pledged that any investigation findings will be shared publicly, with Minns committing to being "completely transparent about any kind of investigation or any findings that we learn."
NSW Health says there is no specific link to construction at the Children's Hospital at Westmead. That distinction matters, because the evidence at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is considerably more damaging. Briefing documents seen by AAP show health authorities failed to move transplant patients from a ward adjoining major construction sites despite knowing the danger to the immunocompromised. The hospital is in the middle of a $940 million redevelopment. The internal document estimates a mortality rate of between 60 and 80 per cent for patients contracting an invasive fungal infection.
The cause of the RPA infections was Aspergillus, a common mould found in soil, dust and damp environments, and the hospital confirmed patients in its transplant unit were affected by the fungal cluster in late 2025. People with weakened immune systems face a much higher risk of developing the infection, including those receiving chemotherapy, corticosteroid treatment, or organ or stem cell transplants. Transplant patients are particularly vulnerable because their immune system must be deliberately weakened to prevent their body rejecting the transplanted organ.
The transparency question is where this story turns most uncomfortable for the Minns government. Knowledge of the RPA outbreak was kept from the responsible minister for more than a month after health authorities discovered it. Park's office was alerted on Christmas Eve to the possibility of deaths relating to the fungal cluster, but Park himself admitted he was unaware of the deaths and illnesses until well after his return from holidays on January 5, saying he was told around "the first part of February."
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant convened an expert panel to advise on risk mitigation, and it declared the RPA transplant ward safe to reopen on 9 February. At the NSW Health portfolio level, Park acknowledged that ageing infrastructure creates real challenges. "What we know is that not all of our hospitals are brand spanking new," he said, according to 7News. "We're transitioning to the new at the moment." He added: "I'm sure the inquiry that we've got underway will identify areas where perhaps maybe we could have done better, particularly in areas where we have vulnerable patients."
That measured tone has not satisfied the opposition. Shadow health minister Sarah Mitchell accused NSW Health of a straightforward cover-up, telling reporters: "I think that's plain and simple and I think the community deserves better." NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane was more pointed, saying: "If you're a patient, you deserve to be cared for in our hospitals, not having to avoid fatal mould, maggots (and) bird lice." A snap review of hospital infrastructure, commissioned in the wake of the RPA deaths, identified major pest infestations in the past decade that were never publicly reported, including flies, cockroaches, birds and possums found in major Sydney and Central Coast hospitals, including Westmead and Royal North Shore, between 2012 and 2019.
The cover-up allegation is a serious one and should not be dismissed as partisan point-scoring. The timeline at RPA tells a troubling story: authorities possessed internal documents acknowledging lethal risk to patients, those patients were not relocated, deaths occurred, a ministerial briefing was written in January after the fact, and the minister himself says he did not learn of the deaths until February. That is not the rhythm of an organisation confident it has acted correctly. At the same time, the progressive case that chronic underfunding of hospital infrastructure bears responsibility here also has considerable force. Facilities cannot be made safe overnight, and the scale of the NSW hospital estate means some degree of ongoing risk is unavoidable. The real question is whether the management of that risk was adequate and honestly communicated.
Both failures, clinical and bureaucratic, deserve full accounting. The NSW Parliament should ensure the inquiry currently underway has the independence and the access to documents needed to answer that question clearly. Premier Minns' commitment to transparency is welcome; the test will be whether it extends to findings that reflect poorly on the government's own management of the health portfolio. Rebuilding public trust in hospital safety will require more than reassurances from a podium. It will require a public record of what went wrong, when, and who knew.