public health
TORONTO - It was an astute but self-effacing pediatrician who first called attention to what is being described as Canada’s worst outbreak of E. coli O157:H7.
“I’m not a hero. I was just kind of doing my job,” said Dr. Kristen tiffany jewellery, who practises at the Grey-Bruce Regional Health Centre in Owen Sound, Ont., a level II hospital, and the referral centre for Walkerton, which has no pediatricians.
Dr. Hallett, a newly minted pediatrician who completed her residency only last year, was referred an 11-year-old diabetic boy with severe abdominal pain on Thursday afternoon before the Victoria Day weekend. His GP in Walkerton thought he might have appendicitis.
Later that evening, she ordered cultures when he developed bloody diarrhea.
At the same time, a seven-year-old girl was brought to Owen Sound, referred by the same Walkerton doctor. The girl arrived with bloody diarrhea.
“There aren’t that many bacteria that cause bloody diarrhea,” Dr. Hallett said in an interview.
“I thought of E. coli first, but I was not thinking water supply. I tiffany rings on sale thinking more along the lines of McDonald’s, fast-food stores, picnics, because it was just before the long weekend and it had been very nice.”
The girl had been to McDonald’s the week tiffany note, but the boy hadn’t, “and my only link at that time, with two cases, was that they went to the same school.”
At that point, Dr. Hallett decided to let public health authorities take over. The next morning, she called and left a message about her two patients for Dr. Murray McQuigge, the region’s medical officer of health (MOH). But when she learned from nurses in Walkerton that there were many more patients with bloody diarrhea there, and that they were being treated with antibiotics, she urged the health unit to get Dr. McQuigge immediately.