Food Poisoning at Hospital Suspected

State health officials have been unable to narrow down the cause of a possible food poisoning outbreak at Simi Valley Hospital that left four patients sick last month.

The illnesses occurred after breakfast Nov. 28 in the hospital’s behavioral medicine services department, which provides psychiatric care. None of the illnesses was life-threatening.

After the symptoms appeared, hospital officials immediately began their own investigation of the food preparation facilities, said Kathy Boyle, a spokeswoman with Sodexho Marriott Services, which has run the hospital’s food service operations since late September.

After their initial inspection, hospital officials called in county Environmental Health Services on Nov. 30, Boyle said.

County investigators ruled out the hospital’s main kitchen as the source of the outbreak, said Elizabeth Huff, a manager with Ventura County Environmental Health Services.

They could not rule out the kitchen in the behavioral medicine office, however, so they turned the case over to a state licensing office that oversees hospital kitchens. A dietary consultant for the office inspected the kitchen Dec. 8.

Initial investigations were hampered somewhat by the brevity of the illnesses, Huff said.

No laboratory work was done on the four patients affected.