Concerned parents in Rochester, Indiana rallied at the courthouse last night to demand answers about E. coli illnesses and the E. coli death of a 9-year-old girl. Five E.coli illnesses are associated with an area daycare that has not been named, one child remains hospitalized.
But Destiny Smith, 9, who was laid to rest yesterday, did not attend daycare. Her parents, and others, are concerned that there is a larger E. coli issue and they are frustrated with the lack of information from public health officials. After all they have been through, Destiny’s parents want more information to be made available so other families may be spared a tragedy.
Destiny developed a severe complication from E.coli called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) which causes kidney failure, seizure, stroke, coma and death. She died two days after being hospitalized at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.
This morning, a lawsuit stemming from a child’s death in an E.coli outbreak at a South Carolina daycare was filed. In June, the Learning Vine daycare in Greenwood, South Carolina was linked to an E. coli outbreak that sickened 14 children. A 2-year-old boy was killed.
My wife ran a daycare in Utah from 2010-2012 until we moved to Michigan. At that time she was not allowed by state law to serve prepared food to the children. All food had to be store bought and pre-packaged. My wife was not licensed to serve anything else. I would hope this is the case everywhere else as well. I’m a Quality Control Manager and deal with food safety everyday and hope these daycare centers are licensed and inspected to serve prepared food and that they are inspected for food safety, food sanitation and food handling and at least have workers with a FOOD HANDLING LICENSE. What a sad time for these parents and these workers whom I’m sure meant no harm to these children. Lack of understanding about food safety seems to be the culprit here.
L. Clark