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blufire21
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« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2002, 05:21:53 pm » |
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It's a guy and the tone of the article makes it sound like ignorance. Apparantly he thought that because he was using it to give medication via an IV line (and not directly pricking skin) it would be ok. I'm sorry, but it's one of the first things they teach you. I took pre-med and clinical rotaion in high school, and I remeber the first day was a lesson this.
NY Times
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October 10, 2002
Reuse of Needle at Hospital Infects 50 With Hepatitis C
By BARRY MEIER
ore than 50 people at an Oklahoma hospital have been infected with hepatitis C after a nurse repeatedly used the same needle and syringe to give drugs, area health officials say.
Officials of the hospital, Norman Regional Hospital in Norman, have contacted hundreds of patients treated since 1999 at the hospital clinic where the nurse worked and have urged them to be tested for blood-borne diseases.
"By my understanding, this is the biggest outbreak of hepatitis C that has taken place as a result of transmission within a health care facility," Dr. Michael Crutcher, state epidemiologist at the Oklahoma Department of Health, said yesterday.
More than four million people in the United States are infected with hepatitis C, and experts say the virus is frequently transmitted when an infected drug addict shares a hypodermic needle with an uninfected person. Hepatitis C is the most virulent form of the hepatitis virus and can lead in a small percentage of cases to serious liver damage and liver cancer.
While some people can naturally overcome the virus, an estimated 50 to 70 percent of those infected with hepatitis C remain chronically infected. The disease is treated with a combination of interferon and the drug ribavirin.
Dr. Crutcher said that investigators believe that the infections occurred at the Norman hospital when a nurse-anesthesiologist in a pain treatment clinic there repeatedly used the same syringe and needle to give a sedating medication to patients before medical procedures.
He said the nurse, James W. Hill, drew enough medication into a syringe to treat multiple patients seen at the clinic on the same day. Mr. Hill then used that syringe with the same needle to inject a small dose of medication into the port of an intravenous line that had been inserted into the arm of each patient.
Since a patient's blood can easily back up into intravenous line ports, nurses and doctors are supposed to use needles only once to avoid the risk of transmitting diseases through reuse. Dr. Crutcher said that he does not believe that Mr. Hill intended to cause any harm. He said Mr. Hill's actions, which came to light last month, resulted from a misunderstanding of proper procedure.
Karen Carraway, a spokeswoman for Norman Regional, said 300 patients treated at the clinic this year had been tested and 52 of them had tested positive for hepatitis C. Ms. Carraway said that the hospital had decided to advise another 500 people treated at the clinic since it began operating in 1999 to seek testing.
The hospital also suspended the privileges of the anesthesiologist running the clinic, Dr. Jerry W. Lewis, and barred Mr. Hill from working there. Dr. Crutcher said the Oklahoma Board of Nursing was also investigating Mr. Hill.
A lawyer for Dr. Lewis did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Mr. Hill's lawyer, Steve Peterson, said he could not comment because of pending litigation other than to say that his client was cooperating with investigations.
A number of those infected have filed lawsuits against Dr. Lewis, Mr. Hill and Norman Regional.
Safer hypodermic needles that can only be used once exist. But for the safety mechanism of one such device to work the syringe has to be emptied, so it is not clear if it would have prevented Mr. Hill's actions.
The American Association of Nurse Anesthesiologists has reminded its members that needle reuse is not acceptable, Dr. Crutcher said.
"If this gentleman was doing it and thinking it was O.K., then others were doing it, thinking it was O.K.," he said.
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