A woman struck down by salmonella poisoning after eating at Melbourne’s Langham Hotel spent six days in hospital with the illness, according to her husband.
The Victorian Health Department said there were 15 confirmed cases of salmonella poisoning of diners who had high tea at the hotel on July 11 and 12.
Greg LaManna said his wife and daughter were part of a large group of family and friends who ate at The Langham, with eight of those taken to hospital and seven diagnosed with salmonella poisoning.
“The [body] temperature was up to 41, other symptoms [were] just horrid, relentless diarrhoea and vomiting from both the girls, headaches, stomach cramps,” he said.
“[My wife] was describing it as worse than giving birth, she only started eating two days ago.”
Symptoms of the illness include diarrhoea, fever, headache, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting and dehydration.
Mr LaManna said the family believed chicken served at the high tea was responsible.
“That was the main item they were eating on the platters that day … some of the girls who didn’t get sick didn’t eat the chicken sandwiches, so amongst themselves they’ve been able to work out who ate what,” he said.
Mr LaManna said both the health department and the hotel have taken too long to address the problem, and appear to have been downplaying the figures of those affected.
“Nobody wants to see or hear of this thing and in a business things can go wrong, we’re in the food business as well, but, you know, 120 people a year die from this,” he said.
“We can all be angry, frustrated but at this point in time, we would’ve thought there might’ve been a better investigation and information flow.”
Langham managing director Ben Sington said the hotel had been speaking with affected guests, and the department had begun an investigation.
“We actually have very robust protocols, we actually freeze samples of food that we prepare in advance and actually had the samples which is very good,” he said.
“So we’ve been able to give those to the department so they can test them … we’ll have the tests later this week.”