A BRAVE Gourock cancer survivor has told how a hospital infection from contaminated water has left her with heart problems, hearing issues, failing kidneys and liver disease.

Molly Cuddihy, 19, revealed the damage done to her health as she gave evidence at the public inquiry into the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and the Royal Children's Hospital.

In the last three years she has had to battle metastatic Ewing's Sarcoma as well as a deadly infection caused by contaminated water in the building which sent her into 'septic shock'.

Molly contracted rare infection Mycobacterium chelonae and her lifesaving surgery had to be delayed.

A cocktail of drugs to fight off complications has resulted in long-term effects.

The physiology student, diagnosed with cancer at 15, told the hearing how 'everything started to go wrong' during her stay in hospital.

Molly said: "It should have been a safe haven.

"I trusted the healthcare team implicitly and they always told us what they knew, but they too were kept in the dark.

"It was a world class health team but the hospital was not world class."

Molly was under the care of a world leading expert for her cancer treatment from January 2018 but the first signs of trouble came that April, during a round of chemo, when her temperature spiked.

The following month she went into a frightening fit as her body 'rigored' during a visit from her brother.

She said: "I had no idea what was happening, but everyone was getting desperate in the room, they were trying to get a line in to my body, my brother was opening syringes."

When it was discovered she had contracted the infection Molly was put on rounds of IV antibiotics.

She told the hearing: "I thought chemo was bad but this was something else, it was horrible, like having bleach."

In October she was to undergo an operation to remove a rib as part of her treatment, but a surge in her temperature caused by the return of the bug saw it cancelled.

The anaesthetist who made the lifesaving call said if they'd went ahead it would have been 'catastrophic'.

Molly said: "They meant that if I had the operation, I wouldn't have woken up."

The youngster spent a year on antibiotics for the infection as well as undergoing cancer treatment.

In the meantime her dad John had started to ask questions of the health board about how she'd contracted the bug.

Molly said: "We were told at one point when we moved out of the Schiehallion [ward] that it would be a new water supply, but it wasn't.

"I was led to believe that my contracting Mycobacterium chelonea was an isolated incident.

"But it turned out someone else had it as well.

"At one point I was coming back from radiotherapy and we couldn't get in the front entrance to the Queen Elizabeth because a window had fallen out and there was glass everywhere.

"So we couldn't use one entrance because of falling windows, the other because there was problems with fungus.

"The only way in and out was through the discharge door, which was where the smokers stood."

After the Schiehallion ward in the Royal Children's Hospital was closed down Molly was treated in ward 6a at the QEUH but there were continued water supply problems, with filters on the taps and no drinking allowed from them.

She said: "It was horrible, everyone was stuck in their rooms because of the risk of infections.

"I became really sick at this point.

"The Schiehallion ward was wonderful, a happy place, before everything started to go wrong."

Following the conclusion of an independent case review, Molly said that the health board couldn't even get that right.

She added: "They sent the same letter to everyone, even people who had lost a child.

"They wrote a letter to me talking about my child Molly.

"They couldn't even be bothered to send out four different types of letters for the different groups.

"The chief executive wrote me a letter but even then she missed the point, talking about how I was coping during Covid and the hard times, as if that was the worst that had happened to me."

Despite eight rounds of gruelling chemo, surgery to remove her cancer in her rib and treatment for the infection, Molly sat her national exams, gaining straight As, and went on to raise £330,000 from a fundraising charity ball with her best friend.

But she also told the inquiry how she suffered a relapse, needed a stem cell transplant and more chemotherapy, with treatment options limited by the kidney and liver disease.

It then emerged she'd been given an overdose of chemo, 14 times more than she should have, which led to her losing a chunk of her tongue and her insides being burned.

In her witness statement to the probe, Molly said: "I’m still here, but there’s a lot of things wrong with me that shouldn’t be.

"I shouldn’t have lost parts of my hearing, nor should I have reduced kidney function or have my liver not working.

"These are all avoidable things that I now have to live with.

"In the event that cancer comes back, these physical effects make my options for future treatment very reduced.

"I also have to contend with the fact that the Mycobacterium chelonae bug could come back at any time.

"It’s a cousin of tuberculosis and it lies dormant in the body."

The health board are due to give evidence at a later date in the inquiry.