South Carolina Lawyer Blog
Colorado, Texas, and now New York are advising patients to get tested for hepatitis C while health officials investigate a technician addicted to pain killers, reports the Associated Press.
Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco has begun to notify 2,800 patients of their possible exposure to Hepatitis C because of a surgical technician’s drug dependency.
A surgical technician is accused of taking clean needles filled with Fentanyl, injecting herself with the drug, then placing the used syringes filled with saline onto the operating room carts. Fentanyl is a narcotic painkiller 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine, and was meant to be used for the hospital’s surgical patients. The surgical patients received saline solution from a Hepatitis C contaminated needle instead.