A hospital technician at Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire recently admitted that he had been infecting people with hepatitis C at the hospital while stealing painkiller syringes. The man would snatch syringes from the hospital and then replace them with saline-filled syringes that were tainted with his own blood.

The New York Daily News reports that this technician plead guilty to 14 counts of tampering and drug theft. He was a travelling hospital technician, which means that the individual went to multiple hospitals and committed his serious crime. He is solely responsible for a multistate outbreak of Hepatitis C last year that killed one patient in Kansas and infected 46 people total.

The defendant with the initials D.K. is a 34-year-old who says that he is guilty of his crime and is willing to take on the punishments. Because he plead guilty, D.K. will be able to avoid being charged for Hepatitis cases affecting individuals outside the state of New Hampshire. D.K. admits that he was addicted to drugs and alcohol and was recently diagnosed with depression. As a result, he was on a variety of medications, and had developed an addiction to painkillers.

The individual will be sentenced for his crimes in December. At least two dozen civil lawsuits are pending against him, most of them from patients who were4 infected with Hepatitis C at Exeter Hospital. D.K. worked at this specific hospital for 13 months. The hospital technician worked at 18 hospitals in 7 states before he was hired in New Hampshire. When travelling, he would fill temporary openings throughout the country. He contracted hepatitis C while performing this travelling job, but failed to tell work personnel because he was worried it would affect his ability to work at the hospitals.

Every time that D.K. took a painkiller syringe and replaced it with a saline one that was tainted with his blood, he would infect innocent patients with his illness. D.K. admitted to investigators that he has been stealing painkillers from hospitals since 2002. This was the year before he finished his medical training. He admitted that his actions were killing a lot of people. Reports show that 46 people were infected with hepatitis C in four of the states where D.K. worked.

32 of these individuals were in Maryland, seven in Maryland, six in Kansas and one in Pennsylvania. Doctors say that Hepatitis C can cause liver problems and chronic health problems that can lower a person's life expectancy. D.K. sometimes would come into work on his days off and insist on staying late after his shift-workers had already headed home.

During these times, he would steal painkillers and replace them with his dangerous substitutes. In the civil lawsuits against D.K., individuals claim that they have been unable to work since contracting Hepatitis C, or that they are having trouble with other medical conditions such as diabetes. One plaintiff says he now has trouble sleeping, and another is afraid to kiss his wife in anticipation that she could contract the illness.

Whenever a hospital worker fails to provide care for patients, and instead performs negligent or harmful procedures or actions, hospital patients have the right to sue. You can contact a local medical malpractice attorney using this directory if you believe that a hospital technician made errors which have caused you injury or undue harm. You will need to prove that another doctor would have made a different choice under similar circumstances. Learn more about medical malpractice lawsuits by contacting an attorney near you immediately!