A drug-swapping scandal involving a former surgical tech at a Colorado hospital may have exposed as many as 3,000 patients to HIV.
Earlier this Febuary, Rocky Allen, 28, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a controlled substance by deceit. While employed at the Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, CO from August 2015 to January 2016, Allen had allegedly and repeatedly switched out syringes of a powerful painkiller, fentanyl, with saline solution — actions which could have possibly exposed the approximate 2,900 patients who received surgery at Swedish during that period to Allen’s blood. At the time, investigators disclosed that Allen did indeed have a bloodborne pathogen in his system and the hospital arranged for these patients to receive free blood testing for HIV as well as Hepatitis B and C. And soon after Allen’s indictment, an attorney for several of the tested patients, Jim Avery, told CBS 4 that two of his patients had tested positive for Hepatitis B. Cont.
Story from - Medical Daily/CBS4
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