GROVE CITY — Ohio’s health authority has ordered Mount Carmel Health System’s newly opened hospital in Grove City to take safety measures after seven patients were diagnosed with potentially fatal Legionnaires’ disease.
The state Health Department ordered the hospital to immediately take steps to protect the public’s health.
Department of Health Director Amy Acton in a statement said the cluster of cases at Mount Carmel Grove City outside Columbus was identified Friday.
The first patient diagnosed with Legionnaires’, a severe form of pneumonia, was admitted April 29, a day after the hospital opened.
A Mount Carmel spokeswoman says hospital officials are confident that full services can be maintained “while we study this situation.”
In an adjudication order issued Friday, Acton ordered hospital officials to flush and disinfect water lines and fixtures in the seven-story, 200-bed hospital, test and clean all ice machines and take other steps or Acton says she will order the hospital to cease accepting new patients.
Officials with the state department and Franklin County Public Health were scheduled to conduct an environmental health assessment of the facility on Saturday morning, Acton said.
The Mount Carmel system has been under scrutiny after discovering that a doctor had prescribed excessive doses of painkillers to 29 patients who died at its other hospitals.