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7 patients infected with hepatitis C

May 6, 2015

medSanta Barbara health officials have identified seven patients of a area sports clinic who have tested positive for hepatitis C. The clinic was closed down in April after investigators discovered its staff was not following proper protocols to protect patients from blood-borne illnesses.

After a patient of Dr. Allen Thomashefsky tested positive for hepatitis C, health officials sent 360 letters asking former patients who had injections at the clinic to get tested for hepatitis C, hepatitis B and HIV.

Of those tested, six more have tested positive for hepatitis C, five of whom had injections on the same day and most of whom had no risk factors.

It is slated to take about three months to complete genetic testing of the blood taken from the positive patients to determine if they were infected at the Santa Barbara clinic.

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I am thinking at a sports clinic, they are giving steroid injections to knees, necks, backs. Oftentimes, drugs can be injected from a multidose vial, which IS a standard practice. What happens is 10 doses can come from one vial. The medical assist (it is usually NOT a nurse in the clinic setting), wipes the top of the vial with an alcohol wipe to make sure it is now germ free. He/she then opens a BRAND NEW ONE TIME USE SYRINGE OMG (syringes nowadays have retractable needles that retract into the device after the provider injects the medication and pushes the plunger all the way (I have never tried, I will have to see if it is possible next time I am at work to see if I can redraw some saline if they can be re-used, I bet they can :( sooo gross). Ok. So, what should happen is the medication gets drawn in to a NEW syringe, the skin gets cleaned with an alcohol wipe, the patient gets their shot, then the needle gets put in that red sharps container. If a needle is getting RE USED, when that dirty needle is “double-dipped”, once dipped in to that multi use vial, all of those doses will now be tainted. Every other patient who receives a dose from that vial will now be exposed to what ever “grossness” each and every subsequent “dirty dip” adds to the vial, in addition to the bacterial growth that may now also be occuring in that vial. Even IF a patient had NO Hep B, or C, what if they had MRSA?????


THIS is why people need to care who their health care provider is, and this is why it matters who gives their shots……


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I am not saying they were not reusing needles, I am saying they could also be tainting vials, among other things….


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Which infection protocols did they fail to use? I can only imagine that they were reusing needles. That’s criminal and someone should be prosecuted. There is a new drug that can cure certain types of Hep. C; $9000 per pill. If the patients will survive if they have that type but it will cost $168,000 for the meds. If it’s a different type, they’ve been murdered in slow motion.


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My exact thoughts. As for the murder in slow motion, no kidding. I have a friend that died of He C and it took 18 months. It was horrible. I sure hope the new meds that are now available work for these “victims” of the sports clinic.


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This doesn’t even make sense without details.


Are you saying a medical clinic used the same dirty needle on at least seven different patients in one day? That would be disgusting. What medical clinic would do that? That’s something junkies do under a bridge.


Or are you saying the solution in the needle was contaminated? How could that be? How does hep c get into a pre-packaged medical solution?


Details please.


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abigchocoholic, Thank you ! as it seems this investigative CCN group lacks in investigating .


I have met many with Hep C. who are survivors.Some Cured . It’s the one’s who do not get tested and like any other disease do not take care of themselves.


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I just read an article on the SB Independent and part of it said that “Though the department has not released which violations they found during two inspections (one announced, one unannounced), examples of possible breaches include not wearing latex gloves, reusing a syringe, or lack of hand washing.”

So there’s your possible violations. I hope this could be of some help to your questions.


Best regards,

T-Bone


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Lawsuit.


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