Patient advocacy
Some of the unsafe practices that led to the closure of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and prompted the notification of 40,000 former patients were discovered by inspectors at another Las Vegas clinic. But if regulators are to be believed, there’s no need to pile this finding onto the valley’s public health crisis.
According to the Southern Nevada Health District, the reuse of syringes on multiple patients and the use of single-dose medication vials at the Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic on Maryland Parkway has not resulted in any confirmed cases of blood-borne disease. Similar improper procedures at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada infected at least six patients with hepatitis C.
Because the health district isn’t aware of disease spreading from the Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic, it sees no need to notify that facility’s former patients that they might have been put at risk of infection.
“That practice will eventually lead to the spread of blood-borne diseases,” health district senior epidemiologist Brian Labus said. “It could be luck that we haven’t had any cases from there (the Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic), or maybe some just haven’t been reported yet.”
But how, exactly, does the health district expect to learn of unreported cases if former patients aren’t tested? Luck?
As the health district has publicized in the aftermath of this mess, most people who are infected with hepatitis C do not develop symptoms and do not know that they have been infected. And HIV can take years to turn into full-blown AIDS.
Former patients of the Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic need to know that their anesthesia might have been administered inappropriately, and that they should have their blood tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. The Southern Nevada Health District should supply the notification at once.
What’s more galling than the health district’s lack of action on this issue, however, is the manner in which the state’s Bureau of Licensure and Certification conducts its inspections of medical facilities. Bureau workers witnessed the unsafe practices at the Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic during inspections between Feb. 13 and Feb. 15.
Inspectors questioned an anesthesiologist at the clinic on proper protocols, then took no action as the anesthesiologist carried out the procedure improperly. This is akin to a police academy instructor allowing a cadet to wave his weapon and shoot a fellow student during a safety exercise, waiting for the gun to discharge before intervening. Inspectors behaved in similar fashion while investigating the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.
That any government employee responsible for public health could stand by as a patient is put at risk of infection is unconscionable. Bureau of Licensure and Certification inspectors must stop being objective observers and start being patient advocates at once. The public’s worsening perception of the state’s health care system demands it.