A Pennsylvania hospital where three premature newborns died after drinking donor breastmilk has confirmed the source of the infection.
Three infants died and five others were sickened at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, after the babies were exposed to the pseudomonas bacteria which “came from the process we were using to prepare donor breast milk,” the hospital confirmed on Friday.
“Our infection control team has traced the bacteria to the equipment used in measuring donor breast milk, which helps premature infants with their nutritional needs. Since September 30, we have changed this process, and have been using single-use equipment to measure and administer donor breast milk,” Geisinger Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Edward Hartle said in the statement.
The statement said the hospital did not have a policy in place for cleaning equipment used to measure donor breast milk and that it has since drafted a new policy.
Hartle added that the NICU has not had new cases of babies becoming ill from the bacteria since putting a written policy in place.
He noted that the bacteria, which is present throughout the environment, only poses a health risk to “extremely fragile” patients.
All of the victims were born premature with seven of the eight infected babies born at less than 26 weeks of gestation, and the eighth was born at less than 27 weeks, according to the hospital. A normal pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks.
Geisinger officials said they first became aware of the unusual spike in infections in early August. In October, the hospital announced that three of eight infected babies have died in its NICU. Two of the infants are still being treated for the bacterial infection, reported WNEP.
Hartle apologized to the families of the deceased infants.
“We would like to extend our sincere apologies to the families who have been affected by this incident,” it said. “We know that the public holds us to the highest standards, and we will continue to strive to live up to those expectations as we have throughout our history, constantly improving on what we do and how we do it.”
However, the parents of the last newborn to die at the NICU filed a lawsuit last month, claiming that hospital officials failed to protect their son from lethal bacterial infection that had already killed two other premature babies.
Abel Cepeda was five days old when he died at the hospital on Sept. 30. He was the third premature infant in two months to die from an infection caused by the Pseudomonas bacterium, and the eighth to be infected. Geisinger later began diverting very premature infants to other facilities as it works to identify the source of the outbreak.
“What happened here is every parent’s worst nightmare,” said Matt Casey, who filed a lawsuit on behalf of Abel’s parents, Luis Cepeda and Zuleyka Rodriguez.
The lawsuit said the hospital “deliberately concealed” the crisis from parents, accusing Geisinger of putting its “reputational and financial interests” ahead of the health of its most fragile patients.
“Without question, Abel Cepeda’s exposure to Pseudomonas and resulting death would have been easily avoided with adherence to some of the most basic and fundamental standards of care,” the suit said.
Casey told WNEP the hospital’s recent statement is not satisfactory.
“We already know there was both a conscious decision as early as August to conceal the existence of a deadly infection trend, and a related, conscious decision to admit premature babies to that NICU despite this knowledge,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
