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Dean Clinic says patients may have been exposed to hepatitis, HIV
I hope it's nowhere near as bad as it could be.
As many as 2,345 Dean Clinic patients may have been exposed to the bloodborne illnesses hepatitis B and C and HIV because a diabetes nurse educator reused the handles of insulin demonstration pens and finger stick devices over a five-year period, from 2006 to 2011, clinic officials said Monday.
Both Craig Samitt, Dean's chief executive officer, and Mark Kaufman, chief medical officer, described the risk as "small" because the educator, who worked out of the Dean clinics on Stoughton Road and in Sun Prairie, did not re-use actual needles.
Even so, said Kaufman, it is possible that blood from patients contaminated the bases of the re-used demonstration pens, which are supposed to be used to show how to inject insulin and aren't intended for use on people, or the plastic handles of the finger stick devices.
"We're confident the person always changed needles between uses of the devices," said Kaufman. "But even if you're changing the needle, there is the possibility that the first person's blood could come in contact with the next person's blood."
I hope it's nowhere near as bad as it could be.