The North Bay Regional Health Centre has received multiple health inspection infractions, BayToday has learned.
The North Bay Regional Health Centre Food Service has received seven critical infractions and 10 non-critical infractions alone since December of 2020.
In a most recent inspection in late March, the Health Unit found the North Bay Hospital Food Service did not have "adequate protection against the entrance of insects, vermin, and rodents." and "Fail to prevent the entrance of insect/rodent/pests" and "Operator to ensure food premise shall be protected against the entry of pest."
BayToday reached out to the North Bay Regional Health Centre more than a week ago for a comment, and BayToday did not get a response prior to publication.
In contrast, the West Nipissing Hospital had no infractions within its Food Service since 2020 according to the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit. No infractions were found in West Nipissing's three annual inspections in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
The Health Unit makes inspection records public on its website.
See North Bay Regional Health Centre inspection records HERE
The North Bay Hospital garnered four critical-non-compliance infractions during two inspections in late 2021. In the two inspections non-compliance issues including "walls clean and in good repair."
"To provide some context, the number of times a food premise is routinely inspected per year is determined by a risk-matrix criteria," the Health Unit told BayToday about its Health Unit Inspection process.
"The North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC), from a food premise perspective, is in a classification (grouping) that requires three routine inspections per year. The purpose of each inspection is to obtain compliance with the regulations. The Public Health Inspectors at the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit (Health Unit) assess both critical and non-critical food safety factors, and work with the premise to correct any issues that can be immediately addressed prior to leaving the premise," the Health Unit continued.
"Any identified issues that cannot be corrected during the time of the inspection are followed up on by the Health Unit. Based on this process, the total number of issues since 2018 is not what is important, but rather the severity of issues at each inspection and whether compliance was achieved.
"On-going non-compliance is addressed by the Health Unit through progressive enforcement starting with education, training, warnings and then charges. For the NBRHC, observed critical food safety issues were addressed at the time of the inspection through working with the Public Health Inspector."
