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Ant Bites: Court Dismisses ICU Patient’s Lawsuit.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
Each monthly service report from the pest control contractor going back six months before this incident indicated no pest activity. Baited traps were in use specifically to target ants.
COURT OF APPEAL OF LOUISIANA June 1, 2016A patient was admitted to the hospital after she fell at home and hit her head. Within hours she was transferred to the hospital’s intensive care unit. On the morning of her third hospital day an ICU nurse found ants crawling on the patient’s forearm and in her bed. The nurses removed the ants from the patient’s body, remade her bed and applied topical medication to alleviate the pain and itching from the ant bites. The patient was discharged from the hospital three days later.
A lawsuit ensued in which the patient alleged the hospital failed to take necessary steps to prevent insect infestation which posed a threat to patient health and safety. The Court of Appeal of Louisiana rejected the patient’s lawsuit.
The fact the hospital had a contract with an outside pest control company did not mean the hospital was on notice that it had a problem with insect pest infestation, as the patient’s lawsuit claimed. On the contrary, the Court viewed six months of negative pest inspection reports from the company as proof the hospital had no prior notice of an insect problem. In addition, the hospital’s head of quality assurance who was also assistant director of nursing testified there was no prior incident with ants or other insect pests at the hospital, and she would have known if such an incident had occurred. Afterward a thorough inspection turned up no clue how these ants got in and found no evidence of other insect pests in the ICU or elsewhere on the premises.
Searile v. Hospital, __ So. 3d __, 2016 WL 3077789 (La. App., June 1, 2016).