Florida budget cuts eliminate hospital food inspections

No one is inspecting food preparations at Florida’s hospitals and nursing homes nearly one month after the inspections were stopped in a budget-cutting move, officials said Friday.

The Department of Health said it’s working with other agencies to figure out who will handle inspections at the state’s 286 hospitals and 671 nursing homes. Meanwhile, the Department of Children & Families is temporarily taking over the inspection of day-care centers, which were also part of the cuts.

The health department had been inspecting facilities four times a year until Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill (HB 5311) stopping them. Experts say people at these facilities are the most vulnerable for food-borne illnesses.

Crist spokesman Sterling Ivey said the agencies will work together until the Legislature can reexamine the cuts next year.

Food-borne illnesses linked to these facilities have sickened hundreds of Florida consumers in at least 15 separate outbreaks since 1995, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon said his agency decided to fill the gap at day cares and will temporarily oversee inspections because “it was the right thing to do.”

Read the full article at The Miami Herald