Harford Memorial

In response to a critical need for blood, Harford Memorial Hospital in Havre de Grace and the American Red Cross will sponsor an emergency blood drive from 8 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Jan. 23 at the hospital.A combination of fewer donations over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and regular donors being ill or unavailable has the left the inventory of blood at very low levels, officials said, warning that any inclement weather will further reduce blood supplies.Donors should be at least 18 years old and in good health.

Services are set for Tuesday, Feb. 28, for Randall P. Worthington Sr., a prominent Harford County businessman and a member of the Harford County Liquor Control Board, who was killed in an accidental shooting Wednesday morning. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the First Presbyterian Church at 224 N. Main St. in Bel Air. Interment, which will be private, will be at Darlington Cemetery. There won't be any visitation. Around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Harford County Sheriff's Office received a call for an unattended death.

After 85 years in business, Harford Memorial Hospital has no intention of closing up as a general, or acute-care, hospital serving Harford and Cecil counties.That's the message emphasized by Allan Acton, senior vice president of Upper Chesapeake Health System, and Philip Barker, the former Harford County councilman who's taken on the challenging task of smoothing community relations for the Havre de Grace hospital.With $2.5 million in recent renovations throughout, including a newly rebuilt intensive care and progressive care unit with advanced telemetry monitoring, and a 25-bed psychiatric ward that opened just a month ago, Harford Memorial plans to continue its mission for the foreseeable future, Mr. Acton insisted.

Upper Chesapeake Health schedules flu clinics Upper Chesapeake Health will hold flu clinics for people 12 and older. In addition to injections, the intranasal vaccine FluMist is available in limited quantities. The cost is $20 per vaccine, free for those with Medicare Part B. UCH will accept cash or checks only. Schedule for clinics: * Today: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Harford Mall. * Tuesday: 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Jarrettsville Fire House, 3825 Federal Hill Road. * Thursday: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Ignatius Church, 533 E. Jarrettsville Road, Forest Hill.

According to the Harford County Directory of 1953, "The Hospital of Harford County was founded by a group of civic-minded citizens who gathered together for the first time on March 15, 1911. The objective set forth by this group was: "For the purpose of establishing, maintaining and conducting a hospital in the City of Havre de Grace for benevolent and charitable purposes, for the treatment of persons injured and afflicted with disease and sickness and that it was a voluntary association instituted solely for these objects and not with pecuniary gain.

A medical-management group newly affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Health System wants to build a new hospital in Harford County, but close one of the county's two existing hospitals and sharply cut services at the other.The proposal, outlined in an application earlier this month with state health-care regulators, would roughly halve the county's licensed hospital beds, from 494 to 250.Fallston General Hospital, labeled "obsolete" in the proposal, would be closed, and Harford Memorial in Havre de Grace would lose all but 100 of its 275 licensed beds, including its pediatric and obstetrics units.

PEOPLE sometimes can catch diseases in hospitals. It appears that at least five people, three of whom died, may have contracted Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital. At least one family believes hospital officials were not forthcoming about the source of their relative's fatal disease.Outbreaks of the disease, caused by the Legionella bacterium, are more common than generally recognized. The bacteria grow in water and are present in water systems, air conditioners and whirlpools.

Harford Memorial Hospital has begun using a nurse practitioner in the intensive care unit for about half of the unit's evening shifts because of a shortage of critical-care doctors, a move that industry experts said won't necessarily reduce the quality of care. Starting this month, nurse practitioner Peter Lapointe moved from Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, where he had worked about 2 1/2 years in the ICU, to Harford Memorial Hospital, where he will cover about 15 evening/night shifts a month, hospital administrators said.

A fourth person died yesterday of Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital where a hot water tank is believed to have been the source of a recent outbreak.Noting state confidentiality laws, officials declined to identify the patient. But a spokeswoman for a Havre de Grace nursing home last week confirmed that the patient was a woman in her 80s who became ill at the nursing home and was sent to the hospital.While giving no other details, Bob Netherland, a spokesman for Upper Chesapeake Health Systems Inc., which runs the Havre de Grace hospital, said the patient was admitted there on June 28 with pneumonia and Legionnaires' disease symptoms.

A third person has died in an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital, raising to five the number of patients confirmed to have been infected with the bacteria, hospital officials said yesterday.An elderly man who had been treated at the Havre de Grace facility last month was readmitted Friday with pneumonia-like symptoms and died there that evening, hospital officials acknowledged. On Saturday, test results showed that the man -- who was in the hospital from June 18 to June 28 for an unrelated illness -- had contracted the disease, they said.

Upper Chesapeake Health has a new cancer support group for individuals who have been diagnosed with any type of cancer and for their families. The group will meet at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and 2 p.m. May 20 at Harford Memorial Hospital. Information: 800-515-0044. Dinner series focuses on seniors Upper Chesapeake Health will celebrate Older Americans Month in May with a dinner lecture series focusing on senior issues. All lectures begin at 5 p.m. in the Chesapeake Conference Center at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center.

The Father Martin's Ashley Children's Program is available to kids ages 7 to 12 who are facing addiction or alcoholism in their family. The 2008 program is Rainbow of Hope. The program meets from 8:45 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. the second Saturday of the month at 800 Tydings Lane, Havre de Grace. There is a small fee for the program, but scholarships are available for those in need. For information and to register for the program, call 800-799-HOPE, ext. 227. Informational class on bariatric surgery Upper Chesapeake Health is offering a free informational class on "Bariatric Surgery: New Course for Life" at 5:30 p.m. May 13 at Harford Memorial Hospital.

A disc jockey may have been spinning the Bee Gees tune "Stayin' Alive" at a Fallston General Hospital party yesterday, but employees were holding a wake of sorts for the 1974 building, which is closing this weekend. They ate good food, gathered in quiet groups and shared a drink, although the beverage was soda. They also reminisced about Fallston General, which is shutting down operations at 6 a.m. Sunday as Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air opens the doors of its new facility.