As reported by the Associated Press for Boston.com a woman is suing the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, UPMC, because she believes that she contracted hepatitis C at a Kansas hospital from a former medical technician that UPMC knew was involved with drugs.
L.F. claims that the hospital was negligent in failing to inform police officials or government agencies that they were aware that their former employee, D.K., allegedly stole and used drugs during 2008.
L.F., now 70, was treated in 2010 in a Kansas hospital, one of many hospitals that D.K. allegedly worked for after UPMC.
According to the lawsuit, filed in Pittsburgh, L.F. recently tested positive for hepatitis C.
Gloria Kreps, the spokeswoman for UPMC, refused to offer comment on the lawsuit.
D.K., facing drug charges in New Hampshire, has pleaded not guilty to stealing drugs and tampering with needles.
Maxwell Mehlman, the Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western University, commented, "What would have been reasonable for Pittsburgh to do?"
Mehlman explained that medical malpractice claims usually involve a failure to treat, or properly treat, a patient under a doctor's care. L.F. would not be considered "an identifiable victim" that could have been warned in advance – simply because UPMC would have no way of knowing that L.F. was undergoing treatment in a Kansas hospital.
The Kansas health department said that L.F., and at least two others, treated at Hays Medical Center, have been diagnosed with the strain of Hep C that closely resembles the one that D.K. is infected with.
L.F. is upset because hospitals employed someone with a contagious disease that has threatened the health of many people. L.F. told reporters, "He put me and my family in jeopardy, he put a lot of people in jeopardy and this is just going to continue to mushroom. Somebody fell down on the job someplace. He didn't slip through the cracks on his own."
Two temporary staffing agencies are also named along with UPMC as defendants in the lawsuit.
Excuses have been offered, by the varying institutions that employed D.K., of how he avoided detection through background checks and continued to maintain licenses in other states.
When D.K. was accused of stealing the drug fentanyl, officials at UPMC failed to contact the police, as UPMC believed that they lacked enough evidence. Kreps said, "We noticed unusual behavior, caught him with a syringe, but did not witness him in the act of committing a crime."
D.K., employed as a radiological technician, does not fall under the same guidelines as do doctors whose disciplinary actions are recorded in a national database.
A detailed work history was not required when Kansas licensed D.K. in 2010. The board of Healing Arts, according to their lawyer Kelli Stevens, verified his education, national certification and licenses from other states.
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