PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...attling-legionnaires-disease-outbreak-662387/

VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak
November 16, 2012 1:52 pm
By David Templeton / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Four patients at Pittsburgh Veterans Hospital in Oakland have contracted Legionnaire's disease and been successfully treated, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System officials have confirmed.

Clinical care at the medical center will continue uninterrupted, a VA Pittsburgh news release states...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Source: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/...ution-outbreak-patients-treated#axzz2CytmhOCr

Another person sickened in Legionnaires? disease outbreak at VA University Drive
By Luis F?bregas
Published: Thursday, November 22, 2012, 10:30 a.m.
Updated 1 hour ago

Five people have now been sickened in the Legionnaires? disease outbreak linked to the water distribution system at VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System?s University Drive Campus in Oakland, a hospital official reported Thursday.

VA spokesman Dave Cowgill refused to say if the most recent victim has been successfully treated or remains hospitalized, citing federal privacy laws. Officials said last week four patients who developed pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria had been successfully treated and discharged...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...-kills-pittsburgh-va-hospital-patient-664434/


Legionnaires' kills Pittsburgh VA hospital patient
December 1, 2012 12:11 am
By Sean D. Hamill / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System declared Friday that the water system at its University Drive hospital in Oakland is now clear of Legionnaires' disease-causing bacteria that has killed at least one patient.

At the same time, however, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that while it has only confirmed that five cases of Legionnaires' originated in the hospital's water system, there have been another 24 cases of Legionnaires' reported at the hospital since January 2011 -- eight cases in which patients picked up the disease from outside the hospital and another 16 that the VA is not sure where patients contracted the disease...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Source: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/...ill-county-system-weeks-workers#axzz2E2GjyeAs

VA Pittsburgh testing sickened workers for Legionnaires connection
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
By Adam Smeltz

Published: Monday, December 3, 2012, 6:00 p.m.
Updated 6 minutes ago

Three workers at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System hospital in Oakland contracted pneumonia within the past several weeks, though it?s not clear whether their illnesses came from the fatal Legionnaires? outbreak there, a union leader said Monday.

A fourth worker, also based at the VA?s University Drive Campus, reported respiratory problems, said AFGE Local 2028 President Kathi Dahl...

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Legionnaire?s probe at VA hospitals widening
Disease outbreak in Pittsburgh is being investigated

December 5, 2012
The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH - The investigation into Legionnaire's disease at Pittsburgh's Veterans Affairs hospitals has widened with claims that some union workers have gotten sick there and the death of a man in October.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have previously been investigating five cases reported last month, including one patient who died.

A widow said her husband died Oct. 23 after he was diagnosed with Legionnaire's shortly after staying at a VA hospital for heart problems, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. And the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that union officials claim three hospital workers have gotten Legionnaire's in the past several weeks.

VA spokesman David Cowgill said he cannot comment on the claims by Evelyn McChesney of Columbus, Warren County, regarding the death of her husband, John. He also wouldn't comment on claims about the sick workers made by American Federation of Government Employees Local 2028 President Kathi Dahl.
...
http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/c...s-probe-at-VA-hospitals-widening.html?nav=742

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Legionnaire's found at another Pa. vet's hospital

Posted: Dec 12, 2012 8:24 AM CST
<NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT><!--END wnDate-->Updated: Dec 12, 2012 8:24 AM CST

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) - The bacteria that causes Legionnaire's disease has been found in the water supply at one building at a Veterans Affairs hospital in western Pennsylvania, though officials there say no patients or workers have gotten sick.
...
Officials with Pittsburgh's Veterans Affairs hospitals are still investigating an outbreak earlier this fall that sickened at least five patients at its University Drive hospital, 1 of whom died. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies are investigating that outbreak.
...

http://www.wfmj.com/story/20324803/legionnaires-found-at-another-pa-vets-hospital

 

[Shiloh]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_1...-of-legionella-problem-before-patients-death/


January 11, 2013 7:26 PM
Pa. VA hospital knew of Legionella problem before patient's death
By
Elaine Quijano

(CBS News) There's been an outbreak other than the flu at the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh. It raises the question: What do patients have the right to know?

The bacterium that causes the respiratory illness known as Legionnaires' disease was found in the hospital's water system. The hospital and government officials knew about the outbreak but not the patients who were admitted there.

In November, 87-year-old William Nicklas, a Navy veteran, felt nauseated from medication. He went to the Pittsburgh VA hospital. His sons, Bob and Dave Nicklas, weren't particularly concerned.

"He had full trust in the VA," Dave said. "He was loyal to the military, loyal to the treatment he would receive there.It should be the best care in the world."

But in the hospital, he picked up an infection...

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Legionnaires may have killed 5 at Pittsburgh VA
Updated 6:47 pm, Tuesday, February 5, 2013

PITTSBURGH (AP) ? Federal health officials now say five people may have died from Legionnaires disease at Pittsburgh-area VA hospitals over the last two years, not the one death previously reported.

U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., says that information at a hearing Tuesday of the House Veterans Affairs Committee revealed major breakdowns at the VA hospitals. Murphy says that raises new questions about whether the outbreak could have been prevented.

...

Read more: http://www.newstimes.com/news/artic...-5-at-Pittsburgh-VA-4253716.php#ixzz2K4XUNGpc

 

[Emily]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/02/12/cdc-releases-report-on-pittsburgh-va-legionnaires-outbreak/

CDC Releases Report On Pittsburgh VA Legionnaire?s Outbreak
February 12, 2013 5:49 PM

 

[Emily]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

http://www.timesherald.com/article/20130224/NEWS03/130229718/paper-va-hospital-bacteria-almost-same-as-in-1982

Paper: VA hospital bacteria almost same as in 1982

The Associated Press
Posted: Sunday, 02/24/13 07:37 pm
PITTSBURGH? The strain of bacteria that caused a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires? disease in a Veterans Affairs hospital in western Pennsylvania is ?almost identical? to the strain found there more than three decades ago, a newspaper reported...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: PA: VA Hospital in Oakland battling Legionnaire's disease outbreak

Source: http://triblive.com/opinion/editorials/4209340-74/veterans-legionella-grows#axzz2WXBX4uhM

The Veterans Affairs/Legionella mess: It grows & grows ...
By Tribune-Review
Published: Monday, June 17, 2013, 9:00 p.m.
Updated 2 hours ago

Just when you thought the Legionella scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs' hospitals in Pittsburgh couldn't get any worse, it explodes.

As the Trib reported on Sunday, the bacteria that can lead to Legionnaires' disease were running rampant at the VA's hospital in Oakland five years before officials publicly confirmed a deadly outbreak in November 2012. In fact, Legionella bacteria levels were so high between September 2007 and November 2011 that at least 30 percent of faucets, shower heads and public water fountains tested positive for the bacteria. Shockingly, a Sept. 21, 2007, report shows Legionella in 17 of 19 samples taken from surgical and medical intensive-care units...