Bronx Legionnaires' doc says he was fired for testing water

A Lincoln Hospital doctor who treated Legionnaires’ patients at the height of the South Bronx outbreak over the summer — which claimed 16 lives — says he was fired after he went to dozens of patients homes to test their drinking water.

Dr. Michael Skelly, who worked for 13 years at the Bronx hospital as an infectious disease specialist, plans to file a lawsuit against the city claiming that he was wrongfully dismissed.

Skelly visited the homes of 37 patients beginning on Aug. 10, he said.

Six of the homes he visited came back positive for having legionella — the bacteria that causes the disease — in their water.

Dr. Michael Skelly worked for 13 years at Lincoln Hospital as an infectious disease specialist, plans to file a lawsuit against the city after being fired for testing drinking water at patients’ homes, he says. (Seth Wenig/AP)

It’s unclear if it was the same bacteria — which is common — that got the people sick, since further testing would be needed.

“I called patients and asked if I could come,” he said. “I told them who I was and of my concern that the water inside the apartment might be part of the problem.”

He said most people welcomed him in.

Skelly said he was concerned that the city was focusing on cooling towers as the source of the disease and not testing drinking water, which is often the cause of outbreaks. (Janice Haney Carr/AP) Officials linked the outbreak to the Opera House Hotel's cooling tower. (James Keivom/New York Daily News)

“It’s outrageous that (Health and Hospitals Corp.) would fire a doctor that was going above and beyond to try and protect the residents of the Bronx in the middle of an outbreak,” said his lawyer Gregory Filosa.

Skelly said he was concerned that the city was focusing on cooling towers as the source and not testing drinking water — which is often the cause of outbreaks — so he went on his own time with kits he’d received from a fellow researcher.

A spokesman for the city’s HHC — which runs Lincoln — confirmed he’d been fired, saying it was because he violated patients’ privacy rights by going to their homes.

Michael Montgomery (pictured) was one of the many Legionnaires’ patients at Lincoln Hospital. (James Keivom/New York Daily News)

Skelly said some of the patients he visited were people he’d treated, and others he knew from doing research at the hospital as part of his job.

Meanwhile, city officials told the Daily News that the number of people who died in the outbreak had jumped to 16, four more than previously reported.

Those patients had previous illnesses and died after the outbreak was over, said Health Department spokesman Christopher Miller.

The city ultimately determined that the source of the outbreak was the Opera House Hotel cooling tower.