Patients catch bird lice in NSW hospital infested with pigeons

Health workers have raised patient safety concerns over pigeon infestations at three NSW hospitals that have left excrement dripping from ceiling vents, dead smells in corridors, and patients and staff seeking treatment after catching bird lice.

Maintenance teams at Tamworth, Wollongong, and Royal Prince Alfred hospitals have all been alerted to pigeon problems in the last three months, documents released to parliament last week reveal.

In an email sent in November, a Tamworth Hospital employee said pigeons were living in a hole in the ceiling of the rehabilitation unit. In previous years, staff and patients had been treated for bird lice, including one worker who was treated in the emergency department.

A “pigeon eradication plan” drafted in February aimed to remove the birds “safely and humanely” and protect staff, patients and visitors from health risks.

There have not been any cases of bird lice at the facility since 2022, a spokesperson for Hunter New England Local Health District said.

The ceiling issue reported in November had also been resolved, they said.

At Wollongong Hospital, a maintenance request filed in December noted a room in the older persons’ mental health unit had become infested with pigeons and bird lice.

In an email sent a week later, an admin worker said the pigeons had been heard in the dining area, staff tearoom, waiting room, and patient servery.

“There has been more poo coming through the vents in the dining room,” they said.

“This is of quite a concern as it seems there is definitely more than [one] and we are concerned about potential health hazards to staff and patients.”

In early January, another employee reported a foul smell on a different ward.

“There are death [sic] pigeons in the roof space,” they wrote. “Is there anyway the roof space can be cleaned?”

At Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) Hospital in Camperdown, an email sent in January contained images of pigeon droppings covering floors, seats and walls.

“There is now a waterfall of pigeon poo streaming down the wall and onto the chairs located outside TPU [the perioperative unit],” the email reads.

“It’s also streaming into the exhaust fan which I can only presume is circulating contaminants through the area.”

The clinical manager noted the unit had a work health and safety inspection the following week and it “would be good to have it cleaned up”.

Bird lice cannot survive or reproduce on a human host, but can cause irritation by biting.

In rare cases, fungal infections such as cryptococcosis can develop if spores growing in bird droppings are inhaled.

Opposition health spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell, whose office discovered the documents in a parliamentary call for papers, said the people of NSW deserved better.

“Patients go to hospital to be cared for, not to be exposed to bird lice, bird droppings and foul odours caused by dead pigeons in roof cavities,” she said.

The pigeon problems are the latest uncovered in the document tranche. The Herald revealed on Thursday that two transplant patients had died, and four others contracted fungal infections in a cluster linked to construction work at RPA.

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