Summary
A Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center has had Legionnaire's Disease in its water supply for over a year, causing illness in six patients (one of whom died), but News Medical Net reports that the hospital neglected to inform staff or patients until the infections began.
Original source:
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=11221
Details
It was only after six patients developed the disease and one died that the hospital gave staff a memo saying Legionnaires' had "recently" been found in its water system.
Attorneys for the families of two patients of the Washington Heights hospital who died of Legionnaires' have been stunned by the revelations.
Lawyer David Fair says the disease contributed to the April 13 death of patient Richard Montesano, 63, whose family would have brought in bottled water had it known the risks.
Robert Fader, an attorney for the husband of a 42-year-old Queens woman who died of Legionnaires' on March 17, said his client was unaware of the disease, even when she developed an infection after being released.
Each year thousands of patients die after catching deadly infections in hospitals.
A bill is presently pending in the state Legislature which would force hospitals to report their infection rates, which advocates say would encourage better conditions and save untold lives.
Robert Kelly, Columbia Presbyterian's chief operating officer, sent hospital staff a memo on April 5 saying Legionnaires' was in the water.
In a conference call the next day, a city Health Department epidemiologist said Kelly should have noted that patients had been sickened "so that the risk is understood to be real".
According to documents, the hospital first learned in March 2004 that a patient had developed Legionnaires' and that the disease was growing in its pipes.
The patient survived, as did another who developed the disease that August, but the
hospital couldn't kill all the bacteria in the pipes, even after working with city and state health officials as well as private consultants.
The hospital banned showers for some patients and later told everyone to drink bottled water, but it didn't publicly acknowledge that
patients were becoming sick until after a journalist wrote about Montesano's death April 20.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he has published numerous courses on preparedness and survival, including financial preparedness, emergency food supplies, urban survival and tactical self-defense. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He's also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and pursues hobbies such as martial arts, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Email this article to a friend
Share
this article on: 
