Hospital adds green dye to patient IV bags for St. Patrick's Day

KINGSTON, ON—St. Mary's of the Lake Hospital is under fire for inadvertently tinting hundreds of patients green after nurses added festive food dye to their IV bags in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

Head nurse Lorna O'Connor says she was hoping to foster a sense of camaraderie and team spirit in the emergency room.

"What can I say? I love this holiday – hard," says O'Connor, dressed in a rumpled child's leprechaun costume overtop of her scrubs and sipping from a mug of green tea. "Unfortunately, I don't feel like my enthusiasm is shared around here. Last year I hung paper rainbows and shamrocks in the hallways and nobody cracked a smile. People who are clinging to life tend to be in pretty bad moods, I'm noticing. So this year I vowed to step it up."

Hospital staff confirms that in previous years, O'Connor was applauded for her St. Patrick's Day efforts, attempting to cheer up her patients with green Jell-O cubes and dyed apple juice.

Hours after O'Connor went door-to-door, personally adding several drops of green dye to each IV drip, the food colouring was slowly excreted through the patients' skin, resulting in a deeply troubling tint in their complexions.

While the green skin is not dangerous, the colour will last for several weeks, creating embarrassment and confusion among visitors to the hospital.

"It's upsetting that someone could make such a blatantly irresponsible decision," laments Lance Wilkins, cradling his emerald husband. "My life partner looks like a really tired Incredible Hulk. He looks like that annoying eyeball guy from Monsters Inc."

A nearby woman sighed loudly as she glanced down at her Mountain Dew-coloured sister. "I know that nurse means well, and she's actually great with patients. It's just too bad my sister looks like a goddamn Shrek."