New Jersey Hospital May Have Exposed Patients To HIV, Hepatitis
Shore Medical Center in New Jersey is reporting this morning that patients may have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis if they received intravenous morphine or hydromorphone from the hospital between June 1, 2013, and September 17, 2014. State health officials have confirmed that nearly 213 former patients have been notified that they may have been exposed to HIV or heptatitis (B or C) during that time.
The contamination is the result of tampering by a former pharmacist at the hospital, Frederick P. McLeish. McLeish was arrested last month and charged with drug tampering. He allegedly replaced morphine and hydromorphone with saline solution, siphoning off the drugs for his personal use. It’s through McLeish’s reuse of needles that patients may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis – through exposure to the ex-pharmacist’s blood.
Affected patients who may have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis were sent letters by the hospital, but some of the patients who now have to go in for testing say that the hospital could have done more to warn them.
“A phone call would’ve been nicer than this, you know to soften the blow a little, make people not feel so hysterical about it,” said Arlene Polmonari of Atlantic City, who was a patient at Shore Medical Center last year, reports PhillyVoice.
More than 200 patients possibly exposed to HIV, hepatitis at New Jersey hospital https://t.co/tGUx9L9Cjw
— NBC4 Washington (@nbcwashington) February 25, 2016
Administrators at Shore Medical Center have been scrambling to notify patients, warning the public that if they suspect they were exposed, to get tested immediately.
“We have been working with public health authorities to determine if patients could have been exposed to blood borne pathogens at Shore through contact with this employee’s blood. We have contacted all patients who received certain intravenous medications between June 1, 2013, and September 17, 2014. We are providing free testing and support through every step and are partnering with local health department agencies during this testing period in order to be extremely cautious,” said Brian Cahill of Shore Medical Center, in a statement to CBS News.
It’s not the first time in recent memory that a hospital has accidentally exposed its patients to HIV and hepatitis through the actions of one of its employees. Earlier this year, in Englewood, Colorado, a former surgical technician was arrested and charged for allegedly stealing pain medication (Fentanyl) via a syringe, and replacing the medication with contaminated saline.
The Colorado hospital, Swedish medical Center, fired the surgical technician and notified patients who may have been put at risk – some 2,900 patients may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis.
Will New Jersey's heroin epidemic lead to more cases of HIV? https://t.co/JWznb9BmDT
— ACRIA (@ACRIAsays) February 11, 2016
“We deeply regret that one of our former employees may have put patients at risk, and are sorry for any uncertainty or anxiety this may cause,” said Richard Hammett president and CEO of Swedish Medical Center in Colorado, echoing the sentiments of Brian Cahill in New Jersey.
The crisis in Colorado may illustrate just what New Jersey residents who were affected may expect in the coming months. One such case in Colorado involves a 13-year-old girl who may have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis during her stay at the Swedish Medical Center in Colorado.
“Every day she would come in and ask me if the results were in,” said her father, Robert Jacobs, “You’re worried all the time and when [the results] finally came back yesterday, I was ecstatic.”
The painkillers in both the New Jersey and Colorado case are opioids, a highly addictive class of drugs which have been experiencing something of a popularity boom in recent years, causing many public health experts to worry about the potential risk to those addicted to or prescribed the drugs to manage pain. Earlier this year, President Obama addressed the opioid epidemic in an address to healthcare workers.
[Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images]
