Kalispell Regional Medical Center has issued a firm denial of a rumor that a patient had been treated at the hospital for Ebola symptoms last week after returning from West Africa.

Chief Operating Officer Deb Wilson and Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Jeff Tjaden posted a message on the hospital’s website in which they quashed any rumor of the highly infectious disease being present or even suspected in Kalispell.

“Posts on social media, local blogs, and online discussion forums have reported that Kalispell Regional Medical Center received a patient exhibiting signs of the virus,” the letter read. “This claim was thoroughly investigated and was found to be categorically untrue.”

Hospital Chief Executive Officer Velinda Stevens and Vice President Jim Oliverson also confirmed to the Inter Lake directly that the medical center had not received a patient suspected of being infected with Ebola.

As the Ebola epidemic continues in West Africa, and the disease has entered the United States in a handful of cases, public concern is at an all-time high about the deadly virus.

In the wake of news about Americans becoming infected with the disease, a Bozeman blogger and radio host named Steve Quayle sent a message Oct. 26 to his online readers that there was a suspected case of Ebola at Kalispell Regional and that the patient had been transported to St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula.

Quayle’s report claimed the information was provided by the anonymous spouse of an anonymous nurse who dealt with the infected individual in Kalispell. The blog post was further circulated by a Kalispell blogger who issued an email requesting his followers send him any information they had about the situation.

A social media storm followed, along with a categorical denial from the hospital itself.

Kalispell Regional had no patient transfers to Missoula last week. Officials from St. Patrick Hospital did not return calls, although the call volume has been so high about Ebola that a special “Ebola hotline” has been installed.

St. Patrick is one of just four facilities in the United States that is fully equipped to handle and control an Ebola case, but Kalispell Regional, like other hospitals around the country, is taking precautions to be ready in case a local problem occurs.

“The possibility of Ebola coming to Kalispell, Montana, is extremely remote,” the letter on Kalispell Regional’s website says. “However, our teams have been planning, preparing and putting protocols in place to address this health crisis if the need arises.”

An Ebola response team has been put in place at the hospital and is meeting almost every day as well as doing drills with full personal protective equipment.

This equipment, the same suits doctors and nurses might don if a real Ebola patient came to the area, may have been what sparked the rumor.

“They’ve been training with the suits,” Oliverson said. “But that disease is not at our hospital. I’d be one of the first to know.”

To read the hospital’s entire public response, go to http://www.kalispellregional.org/krmc/news/index.cfm?id=911

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.