Brazilian authorities have opened a formal investigation into eight child deaths at a private São Paulo hospital after parents alleged their children contracted deadly infections while under care.
The São Paulo Civil Police began receiving complaints this week involving fatalities at Salvalus Hospital, with victims ranging from newborns to 12-year-olds, the state’s Public Security Secretariat announced Wednesday. The deaths reportedly stretch back to January, though authorities were not formally alerted until days ago.
“The police are conducting investigations, including interviewing healthcare professionals and witnesses, and a full analysis of medical records, in order to clarify the causes of death,” the Public Security Secretariat said.
Among the victims was Alice de Andrades, who died April 3, just three days after turning one. Her mother, Leticia Ferreira, 29, told online news outlet G1 that Alice had been born with Dandy-Walker syndrome, a rare congenital brain condition, and was admitted to Salvalus in November 2025 for a routine procedure to insert a feeding tube.
Ferreira said her daughter was in good spirits upon admission and expected to spend roughly one week recovering in intensive care. But complications mounted quickly. Alice developed breathing difficulties after the procedure, and during an attempt to remove her breathing tube, a stomach stitch came loose and fluid began leaking. She was rushed into surgery, where she suffered cardiac arrest and doctors discovered fluid buildup in her lungs.
Doctors later found a ventricular septal defect, a congenital heart condition, and performed heart surgery. Alice’s condition briefly improved, but she then suffered a head injury requiring another operation to drain fluid from her brain. In February, physicians detected KPC bacteria in her brain, an organism that produces an enzyme rendering infections highly resistant to antibiotics. Alice suffered two cardiac arrests the day before she died. Her death certificate listed Dandy-Walker syndrome, hydrocephalus, acute respiratory failure, infectious ventriculitis and sepsis of pulmonary origin among the causes or contributing conditions, according to Brazilian newspaper Metropoles, which reported Friday that it had reviewed death certificates for 16 children who died at the hospital this year.
“We are now left with this expectation of wanting justice for our children, of investigating the cases, of understanding what really happened,” Ferreira said. “I can only wait and hope that justice will be done.”
The hospital’s parent company, Hapvida, part of the Notre Dame Intermedic group, pushed back against suggestions of a common cause. In a statement, it noted that Salvalus had treated more than 1,000 children in 2026 and said assessments “indicate distinct clinical histories, with no common infectious origin identified among the cases examined.”
Eduarda Gomes, an attorney representing 30 mothers whose children died at the facility, told G1 that the hospital’s explanation falls short. “We hope that all of this will be investigated, that the authorities will truly seek out those responsible, and hold the doctors and the hospital accountable,” she said.
The probe comes amid mounting pressure from bereaved families who have spent months seeking answers about conditions at the private facility.