Scaffolding surrounded the Coulombe Family Tower at Maine Medical Center in Portland on Thursday while repair work between the older, lower part of the tower and the newer two upper floors continues. (Staff photo by Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Portland has struggled in recent years to keep bats from getting into the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, prompting a complaint last year to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Hospital officials said on Thursday they are currently addressing the “occasional incursions from bats.”
Despite efforts to control bats at the Coulombe Family Tower, where the NICU and the critical care nursery are located, hospital officials confirmed there have been seven bat sightings this year.
Employees filed an OSHA complaint about the bats in June 2024 and since then the hospital has launched numerous measures to keep them from getting into the hospital. This includes replacing the facade at the Coulombe Family Tower, John Porter, MaineHealth spokesperson, said in a statement.
The OSHA complaint has since been resolved, Porter said.
“OSHA accepted MaineHealth Maine Medical Center’s corrective action plan. No fine was issued, and required notices were posted,” Porter said in the statement. An OSHA official on Friday confirmed that the hospital addressed the complaint and the case is closed.
Porter said “there have been no known bites of patients or staff” and that “every bat caught has been tested for rabies and they all have been negative.”
No patients or workers were tested for rabies, Porter said, because “there have been no instances where testing a person for rabies was advisable or necessary.”
The last known human case of rabies in Maine was reported in 1937, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Ten captured bats tested positive statewide for rabies in 2024, according to the latest statistics available from the Maine CDC. Tests of the bats captured at Maine Med were conducted by Maine CDC labs, Porter said.
A Maine Med nurse with direct knowledge of the situation told the Press Herald that workers have complained about bats in the Coulombe Family Tower for years, but that hospital officials were slow to respond.
The employee asked to remain anonymous over concerns she would be retaliated against by hospital management for speaking out.
“I do think they are working on resolving it now, after the OSHA complaint, but they were slow in starting to do anything about it,” she said.
A June 2024 letter from MaineHealth to OSHA, dated about a week after the complaint was filed, noted problems with bats going back to 2023. Bat incursions into the hospital accelerated in 2024 — with six sightings — and was likely related to bats getting in at the site of where building repairs were being done at the tower, according to the letter, obtained by the Press Herald.
The Press Herald shared a copy of the letter on Thursday with Porter, who said in the statement that “in addition to on-going pest-mitigation work by contractors, MaineHealth Maine Medical Center is currently undergoing a façade renovation project in the Coulombe Family Tower, which should also address bat incursions.”
The employee said MaineHealth should have notified the public about the bat problem, “especially since we are talking about newborn babies.”
Scaffolding surrounds Maine Medical Center while repair work between the older, lower part of The Coulombe Family Tower and the newer two upper floors continues. The tower has been infiltrated by bats. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer) Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Porter, explaining why the public wasn’t notified last year, said that MaineHealth “relies upon regulatory agencies,” including OSHA, to “determine what disclosures are required for its care team, patients and the public when an incident of this nature occurs. MaineHealth has complied fully with those requirements.”
According to the June 2024 letter from MaineHealth to OSHA, the hospital protected patients by temporarily closing a portion of the critical care nursery, which is a unit where babies need specialized care but are in a condition that is not as severe as babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Other steps included sealing various areas to prevent bats from entering and pest control measures, including disinfecting and monitoring areas where bats could get in, such as heating and air conditioning ductwork.
Porter said the hospital responded in 2024 “by moving staff and patients and working with contractors to minimize intrusions by bats.”
Measures to control bats are ongoing, Porter said, as the hospital “continues to take all necessary steps to mitigate the problem and protect patients and care team members in cooperation with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”
Bat populations in the Northeast have rebounded in recent years, after bats learned to better avoid places where a fungus grew that was reducing their populations in the 2010s.
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