Chimp Treated at Hospital’s Emergency Room

In what some health officials called a highly unusual--and apparently illegal--action, doctors at UCLA-Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar treated a sick baby chimpanzee, brought in by movie makers, in the hospital’s emergency room last Saturday night.

The 2-week-old primate, which was treated by physicians in a vacant area of the emergency room, later died of an unspecified illness it had suffered from since birth, said Carolyn Rhee, Olive View’s chief operating officer.

Hospital officials said the chimp was brought to the emergency room by its owners, whom they could not identify, but who apparently had used chimpanzees for movie and television production work.

“They were not interested in getting a vet because they preferred for a physician to take care of the baby chimp,” Rhee said. “Their practice is to use a pediatrician or a neonatologist,” specialists in treating human children and infants.

Hospital officials said Wednesday that the incident had been reported to the California Department of Health Services and stressed that steps were taken to guard against the possibility of infection after the incident was reported Monday.

“Right now our investigation is centering on transmission of infection,” said hospital administrator Melinda Anderson. “We can’t yet get into the who, what, where and why.”

County infection control officials began an investigation into the incident earlier this week, and a commercial laboratory was testing for infections, none of which have been found, Anderson said.

Meanwhile Wednesday, public health officials expressed understanding of the doctors’ motives, but added that they had serious reservations about the decision to admit the furry infant to the emergency room.

“It was a very sick little animal and they wanted to help it,” said Sharon Wanglin, public information officer for the county Department of Health Services. “But you have to be licensed to treat them and they were not.”

State veterinary officials expressed similar objections.

“As far as I know it’s not legal for a human medical doctor to operate on any animal,” said Sue Geranen, an official with the state veterinary board.

But there are “provisions for human medical doctors to operate on an animal if they were working under the direction of a licensed veterinarian,” she added.