McLaren Hospital

A dispute between the state health department and a Flint hospital is escalating.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is ordering McLaren Hospital in Flint to immediately correct conditions in its facility to reduce the risk of future exposure to Legionella at the hospital.

The Centers for Disease Control is out with a new national study on Legionnaires' disease and health care facilities.

It points to plumbing in hospital, nursing homes and other health care facilities as potential sources for the disease.

A former state health department official has been sentenced for her role in the Flint water crisis.

Monday, retired state epidemiologist Corrine Miller was sentenced to 12 months probation and 300 hours of community service.  She will also have to pay a fine of more than a thousand dollars. 

Flint’s McLaren Hospital is responding forcefully to state health officials' demands for more information on Legionnaires' disease cases and prevention. 

In a letter to Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, McLaren hospital CEO Chad Grant accuses the department of misplacing blame for the Legionnaires' outbreak in Genesee County.

In 2014 and 2015, Genesee County saw the largest outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in at least a decade. The outbreak coincided with the city of Flint's switch from Detroit city water to water from the Flint River (and the subsequent lead exposure crisis).

Nick Lyon, head of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, has written a letter to McLaren Hospital in Flint, demanding it provide more information on efforts to respond to hospital-acquired Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia.

A major outbreak of Legionnaires' was linked to McLaren Hospital in 2014 and 2015, and two more hospital-acquired cases occurred at the hospital in late 2016.