YKWIA told me about this, and I was floored. I'm not a health professional, even though I work in a hospital. But I know you don't reuse needles without exponentially increasing the risk of Hepatitis B and C and HIV transmission.
So how could normal, licensed health professionals either not know to do this, or had such disregard for human life that they did it anyway? We're not talking about somewhere in a Third World country. It happened in Las Vegas.
Vegas Clinic May Have Sickened Thousands
40,000 people have been told they may have contracted a disease through this clinic. That's a good-sized town's worth of people.
Hepatitis C is the greatest concern, because it's not curable at this point, can damage the liver to the point of death, and is far easier to get than HIV.
Staff have apparently said they were told to reuse syringes as part of an unwritten policy. That doesn't let them off the hook. The moment they were told that, they should have resigned their positions and blown the whistle on the centre.
Amid hepatitis scare in Nevada, 5 nurses hand in licenses
According to that article, the Las Vegas Sun said Nevada 'ranks among the worst in the nation for numbers of doctors and nurses per capita, the number of uninsured patients, and the number of unvaccinated children'. (The quoted article was no longer available via link). Apparently it's not very good on overseeing these type of endoscopy/surgical clinics that operate apart from a hospital, either.
The authorities have closed two more clinics owned by the same company, leaving one other open for now.
Agh. This is something that deserves more than losing licences or being sued. This should be a criminal negligence case at the very least.
| Unshelved | by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum |
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