What started as a scare to the Bedford community last night, turns out to be just a bacterial illness, as a Breezewood woman who was admitted to UPMC Bedford Memorial Hospital last night, was not a SARS case as was previously thought.
\n\u201cPreliminary cultures show that the patient being treated is not a SARS case,\u201d said Scot Hartnett, director of marketing and public relations at UPMC Bedford Memorial. \u201cThe virus is bacterial in nature, not viral. We did contact the Center for Disease Control when the patient first came in.\u201d
\nLast night, UPMC Hospital president Roger Winn announced that the patient was being treated in isolation.
\n\u201cWe have a woman who came in with an infectious condition,\u201d said Winn. \u201cIt could be as soon as 24 hours or as long as a week before medical staff could determine the woman\u2019s illness.\u201d
\nIt turned out that less than 24 hours later, UPMC Bedford Memorial is conducting business as usual.
\n\u201cWe would rather err on the side of caution,\u201d said Hartnett. \u201cWe were extremely pleased with the way that our hospital staff reacted. We took all necessary precautions for the safety of our patients, visitors, staff and the community. All the areas that the patient had been treated at last night were decontaminated as a precaution.\u201d
\nSARS is a respiratory infection that is sweeping Asia and was on the mind of a hospital visitor who left as the staff apparently became aware of the situation.
\n\u201cHospital officials led me out a side door and told me I could leave but not come back,\u201d said John Shaffer of Everett who had just visited his newborn baby along with his wife and parents. \u201cI was leaving around 6:30 p.m. to prepare dinner and I heard them say something about a triage. I thought it was a drill.\u201d
\nThere have been more than 200 SARS cases in the United States, but no deaths have been related to the illness. Canada has reported 14 deaths and 250 cases.
\nOriginally Bedford called for a helicopter transport to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh where there is an infectious disease department, but it didn\u2019t happen because of the possible infection.
\n\u201cUPMC Bedford Memorial never closed its doors to the public,\u201d said Hartnett. \u201cToday all departments are at full strength and visitors are being accepted during visiting hours.\u201d
\nThe condition of the 50-year old Breezewood woman was not released.
\nEditor\u2019s note: Bedford Gazette staff writer Elizabeth Coyle contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What started as a scare to the Bedford community last night, turns out to be just a bacterial illness, as a Breezewood woman who was admitted to UPMC Bedford Memorial Hospital last night, was not a SARS case as was previously thought. \u201cPreliminary cultures show that the patient being treated is not a SARS case,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}