Dorian Greek House has been determined to be the origin of a stomach bug outbreak among hospital staff late last week.
Image Credit: Dorian Greek House
December 17, 2013 - 8:23 AM
KAMLOOPS – The cause of a gastrointestinal illness that kept more than 40 hospital employees from work last week originated at the Dorian Greek House restaurant in Kamloops, its owner says.
Diane Dokolas is notably upset and distraught over the news. She takes full responsibility though unfortunate circumstance appeared prominent.
“I sincerely apologize,” she says. "We didn't know."
Last Thursday operating room and recovery room staff began to get ill with what was believed to be a stomach flu. By the start of the weekend more than 40 staff members became ill and 26 surgeries had to be postponed.
Dokolas says one of the kitchen members was sick while preparing food to be delivered for the staff party at Royal Inland Hospital, but didn't realize it until an hour and a half later, when he suddenly got very ill.
Since then six other people at Dorian have gotten ill, including Dokolas, and the owner says the health inspector told her today they had another call about a possibly related illness. Under the advisdement of an Interior Health inspector the restaurant shut down to sanitize the entire place as of 3 p.m. Monday and Dokolas is unsure when they will be able to reopen. Monday was the only night they don't have multiple Christmas events booked this week.
“We suspected it originated here... but we don't know where it came from,” Dokolas says with a bit of a shake to her voice.
The restaurant has no history of major health and safety violations, though minor deficiencies have been noted by inspectors and dealt with by the owners in the past, most recently in October 2012. Dorian Greek House opened in Kamloops in 2002.
To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.
This story was updated 7:47 a.m., Dec. 17, 2013 to include health and safety history.
This story was updated at 9:01 a.m., Dec. 17, 2013 to correct closure information.
News from © iNFOnews, 2013