Children's repeatedly fails kitchen inspections

AURORA - Moldy, rotting and undercooked food, dirty floors and unwashed hands. Those are just some of the 38 critical violations found inside The Children's Hospital cafeteria on the Fitzsimons Campus in Aurora by Tri-County Health inspectors within the last year.

While most hospital kitchens are inspected twice a year, inspectors have had to return to the cafeteria at Children's 15 times in the last 14 months because it repeatedly failed inspections.

"We thought things were getting better until we kept going back. And we thought we were getting cooperation but what we're finding is a pattern has persisted," said Dr. Richard Vogt, executive director of the Tri-County Health Department.

The Children's Hospital says its cafeteria serves more than 2,000 meals a day to young sick patients and their families and never closes.

"It is not uncommon for any food service operation of this scope and magnitude to incur violations," said Natalie Goldstein with public relations for Children's.

Given the poor inspection reports, Vogt thinks it's lucky no one has gotten a food borne illness from eating at the cafeteria.

"We have patients at Children's Hospital that have immuno-compromising illnesses and under those circumstances, they need a very clean food source in order to get well," said Vogt. "I think if you're having these many problems, you're only just asking for trouble."

While the Center for Disease Control reports there are 76 million people who experience food borne illnesses in the United States every year, local experts say there have been no food borne illness outbreaks at Children's.

"The Children's Hospital has never had any patients who have become sick as a result of eating in our cafeteria," said Dr. James Todd, director of Epidemiology at Children's. "We continuously monitor for any infections among our patients and there has never been a causative link between any food service related violation and our children's health."

The news about the inspection reports is troubling to moms like Marti Moore of Golden who took her 18-month-old son Chance to Children's after he got E. coli from eating at another restaurant on vacation out of state.

Chance's kidney's failed from the food poisoning. He was put on kidney dialysis and had surgery. After five weeks in the hospital, Chance recovered. Moore says another food borne illness that could have come from the hospital's own kitchen would have probably killed her baby.

"Children's Hospital saved his life, he wouldn't be here if it weren't for Children's Hospital," said Moore. "But we can't allow our children to go into a facility and the facility actually makes them sick. We have to believe that the food they're eating in a place like Children's Hospital is safe."

Inspection reports obtained by 9Wants to Know show some of the kitchen's 60 employees did not wash their hands even though they handled trash, dirty dishes and prepared food with their bare hands. Several potentially hazardous foods were kept too warm or not hot enough. Workers also wore the same pair of protective gloves all day long for every task.

"They would scratch their head with their gloves, they may be doing other things with the gloves," said Vogt. "The gloves became more of a protectant to the hand rather than as considered a barrier of the transmission of the germs that could be there."

In a meeting with more than a dozen Children's Hospital and Tri-County officials in October 2008, Tri-County warned the hospital it must take the inspections and violations seriously.

"It is imperative that action be taken immediately to correct these violations and prevent their recurrence. If these items are violated on the next regular inspection, legal action will be initiated," wrote Cynthia Bruso of the Tri-County Health Department in a follow-up memo to The Children's Hospital.

In a statement to 9Wants to Know, The Children's Hospital said it immediately corrected all of the critical violations.

"We respect the inspections from the Tri-County County Health Department and when called to our attention, we have immediately corrected all violations," said Natalie Goldstein with public relations for Children's.

While inspection reports show the hospital corrected all of its critical violation problems in five follow-up inspections, reports also show the hospital did not correct other violations nine times.

Children's partly blames its kitchen inspection problems on the move to its new facility on the Fitzsimmons Campus in Aurora last year.

"The hospital had moved into its new facility at the time of these inspections and, as a result, was hiring many new staff and conducting the requisite food service training and developing familiarity with the new environment and new methodologies," said Goldstein.

A review of health inspection records at Children's old facility in Denver shows the same pattern of critical violations.

According to Denver's Department of Environmental Health records, inspectors found 16 critical violations between August 2005 and August 2007 at The Children's Hospital in Denver. The reports say workers stored dirty knives, left food unprotected from contamination and prepared food with their bare hands. Sinks were not available for employees to wash their hands, workers did not change their protective gloves and there was not enough sanitizer solution in buckets to properly sterilize the areas.

"It just increases the risk that potentially that food could make somebody ill," said Danica England, program supervisor for the Denver Department of Environmental Health. "Usually a food borne illness, it might just knock those of us who are healthy down for a day or two with symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea, but for somebody who is immune-compromised, it could be a more serious situation."

The Children's Hospital did not specifically comment about the critical violations found in its Denver facility in its statement to 9NEWS.

When compared to three other hospitals in the Tri-County area, the inspection records from Children's show twice the number of violations and visits than other hospitals.

Since January of 2008, inspectors visited Parker Adventist Hospital four times and found six critical violations, Sky Ridge Medical Center three times and found seven critical violations and Littleton Adventist Hospital four times and found 11 critical violations. In that same time period, inspectors visited Children's 10 times and found 26 critical violations.

Hospitals like Children's that serve food to patients and the public are inspected by local agencies, such as the Tri-County Health Department. Tri-County inspects these facilities one to four times a year, depending on risk level and prior inspection reports.

The average number of critical violations found during an inspection by Tri-County is 3.5 per visit.

Sky Ridge and Parker Adventist Hospital corrected all of their critical violations. Littleton Adventist Hospital still has one uncorrected critical violation from a follow-up inspection visit this month that involves not keeping food hot enough, according to records.

"Critical violations are an important indicator of unsafe food practices and have been implicated in numerous food borne disease outbreaks in the past," wrote Cynthia Bruso, Tri-County Enforcement specialist in a letter to Children's on Oct. 2.

In April 2008, the CEO of The Children's Hospital Jim Shmerling posted a memo on the hospital's Web site about a recent positive review of its restaurant, which did not include inspection reports.

"Needless to say, we at The Children's Hospital are extremely proud... An independent and respected review of this important service we provide to patients and families and our own staff is testament to the high quality that defines the totality of The Children's Hospital experience," wrote Shmerling.

The Children's Hospital says it is now holding quarterly on-site food-safety training for its employees, is having managers and supervisors conduct daily inspections, and is now using an electronic temperature monitoring system for its walk-in refrigerators and freezers.

If you have a tip for investigative reporter Deborah Sherman, e-mail her at deborah.sherman@9news.com.