A widow whose husband contracted an infection after a landmark heart-lung transplant said she wanted answers from the hospital caring for him.
Aaron Green, from Arundel, West Sussex, had the world’s first operation at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge in 2019.
It was a success, but infection may have caused his body to reject the organs. He died in July at the age of 26.
Royal Papworth said its thoughts are with the family and it has never recorded an outbreak of the bacteria.
Mr Green became the first person to receive a heart and lung transplant from a donor whose heart had stopped, in what the hospital said was a major breakthrough.
After his recovery, he returned to playing cricket and cycling, and things were going “really positively,” his widow Julie said.
The couple married in September 2020, but he then contracted the bacterial infection Mycobacterium chelonae.
“Every time we caught it [the infection], it came back; Every time we thought we’d hit it, it came back,” Mrs Green said.
“He kept getting sicker and sicker, he lost so much weight.
“He got back in a wheelchair and on oxygen, and eventually we were told he had two to four months to live.”
She and her husband suspected its decline could be linked to an outbreak of another bacterium at Royal Papworth, which was believed to have been transmitted from patients through the hospital’s water supply.
Mycobacterium abscessus was infected by 32 other hospital patients and resulted in a serious incident being reported to the Trust.
A joint investigation is to be conducted to see if it contributed to the deaths of two patients.
“We think so [mycobacterium chelonae] came from the hospital water supply,” Ms Green said.
“At the same time, a couple of other patients came who had caught similar bacteria, and one day while we were in the clinic, we received a letter that said ‘don’t drink the water here’.
“He’d been drinking the water, he’d been showered in the water, he’d washed his nebulizer — which is like a medicine machine — in that water, and all of a sudden they were saying people were picking things up.”
She has hired lawyers to find out what happened to her husband and five other patients who also fell ill after the operation.
“Hopefully the investigation will find out for sure if the two are linked,” she said.
“I have a strong inkling it would be those two; it’s too suspicious and Aaron really wanted to know the answers and he deserves for the answers to come out.”
A review of Mr Green’s death ahead of an inquest is due to take place in Cambridgeshire later this month.
A spokesman for the Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Trust said: “Our thoughts are with Aaron’s family at this difficult time.
“The Royal Papworth Hospital has never had a recorded outbreak of Mycobacterium chelonae and we fully support the Coroner’s investigation.
“In 2019, we identified cases of Mycobacterium abscessus, another organism, and as part of our extensive investigation, we took several measures to ensure safety, including treating the water supply and installing special filters on faucets and showers.”
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