A congressional panel will question Department of Veterans Affairs officials about mistakes that put more than 10,000 patients at risk of possible exposure to HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and other infectious agents at the Miami VA Hospital as well as VA hospitals in Murfreesboro, Tenn. and Augusta, Ga.
In Miami, a tube that should have been cleaned after each colonoscopy was instead cleaned at the end of each day, affecting approximately 3,260 patients between May 2004 and March 2009.
In Murfreesboro, an incorrect valve in the colonoscopy equipment which is manufactured by Olymous American, may have allowed body fluid residue to transfer from patient to patient. VA officials have said they don't know if that happened just one day or for more than five years since the equipment was installed in 2003 and have therefore tried to contact all 6400 veterans who had colonoscopies in that facility during the entire period.
In Augusta, the ENT scopes used for looking into the nose and throat were not properly cleaned, affecting 1,100 patients between January 2008 and November 2008.
All potentially infected patients were urged to get follow-up blood checks. As of May 18, VA records show about 8,000 of the 10,483 possibly infected patients have been notified of their results. Five have tested positive for HIV and 43 have tested positive for hepatitis, according to an update on the VA website Friday. Three of the HIV cases and 8 of the hepaptitis cases came from the Miami VA. Hospital officials there said there is no way to firmly link the infections to VA equipment, but have promised to care for every infected veteran for life.
The Miami VA will take additional steps to reach the 216 veterans it has not been able to contact including sending 7 nurses door-to-door on June 6 and a “Reach Out Fair” June 13 at the Miami VA to try to change the minds of 72 veterans who were notified, but declined to come in for testing.
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Since the initial discovery of the Tennessee error, the VA admits that problems have been uncovered at more than a dozen other medical facilities. Officials declined to identify these sites and claimed the issues found did not require follow-up blood tests for patients.
The U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs oversight and investigations subcommittee has set a June 16 hearing in Washington to look into what caused the problems and what the VA has done to fix them. The VA's inspector general is currently investigating.
For more info: U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs
Comments
A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!!!
OBAMA AND DEMOCRATS <-- THESE MORONS WILL DESTROY AMERICA'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM...
I am sorry for all the people / veterans that are going through this and the family members that could also have been in contact with the veteran that may have HIV. I worked at a VA hospital from Feb 2008 - Feb 2009. After reporting the equipment was not being checked in April 2008 to the VA and the Joint Commission I endured about a year of being treated as if I was the one that had done something wrong. I was told I was going to have problems working for that administration. This all happened at the Biloxi VA Medical Center. The Biomedical Department was not doing checks on all of the medical equipment and when time came to do a service on the equipment, the guys would just sticker it to make it look like the service had been done. Life support equipment that is used for saving lives were also just being stickered by the biomedical department. I am waiting for this to be investigated and what the VA will do if veterans were injured at this hospital.
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