DANVILLE - Geisinger Medical Center has been dealing with a bedbug outbreak and several areas, not released to the public, have been taken out of service over the last several weeks, a hospital spokesman told The Daily Item Wednesday.
Marcy Marshall, of Geisinger's public relations department, told the Sunbury newspaper, that the sections would be back in service once it was determined whether they were free of problems.
She did not say whether the closed sections were patient or non-patient areas, the paper reported.
The bedbugs were first discovered a few weeks ago and the affected areas were isolated for two to three days or until they were free of any problem.
The Daily Item also reported that infestations like this are becoming more common, and Mount Sinai Hospital in Baltimore also had a similar problem two weeks ago.
According the article, Orkin, an extermination company, found the company's branches had been summoned to 500 bedbug cases in hospitals and 130 cases involving long-term care facilities in 2009.