Media Library

Two More Las Vegas Clinics Closed in HIV Scandal

Atlanta, GA 3/05/2008 11:46 PM GMT (FINDITT)

Two more Nevada clinics were shut down Wednesday after the medical group that operates them was accused of infecting people with the hepatitis C virus.

The closure of Gastroenterology Center of Nevada offices in Henderson and North Las Vegas leaves just one clinic associated with the company still open. That clinic is located on Tenaya Way in Las Vegas.

The Southern Nevada Health District says some 40,000 former patients of the group's Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada on Shadow Lane are at risk of hepatitis C, B and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

They received treatment at the clinic between March 2004 and last Jan. 11.

Center owners can appeal Tuesday's orders to shut down the clinics to the Henderson and North Las Vegas city councils.

City, county, state and federal agencies are investigating amid allegations that injection practices, including reuse of syringes and vaccines, exposed patients to potentially deadly infections.

Dr. Dipak Desai Surrenders License in Hepatitis Scare

March 09, 2008

In the fall of 2001 I was leaving on an extended trip and went to the family physician for the usual shots and prescriptions for malaria etc. As I was leaving, he gave me a dozen individually wrapped syringes. If I had to visit a doctor during my travels, he suggested that I use only these syringes.

I had never taken this precaution on my earlier travels. When asked, he told me that five of his patients who had recently returned from India had acquired hepatitis (both chronic and acute) and were under his treatment.

Hepatitis is a viral inflammation of the liver. It can be acute or chronic. The former last up to six months and the latter lasts longer, sometimes indefinitely.

One of the prime causes of its spread is through unclean syringes. And unclean syringes also cause HIV-aids.

K. P. Nayyar broke this news story in the Telegraph yesterday:

An Indian American doctor is at the centre of what is emerging to be America’s biggest medical malpractice scandal.

As many as 40,000 people may have been infected with the deadly hepatitis C virus or HIV from a Las Vegas clinic, owned by Dr Dipak Desai, which has been reusing syringes and medical vials for nearly four years.

Local TV crews are now descending on his luxurious home with a swimming pool, spa and multiple fireplaces, for which Desai and his wife paid $3.4 million (Rs 13.6 crore) with what may now turn out to be tainted money.

The scandal has created a frenzy among lawyers who have begun chasing ambulances and taking out television and newspaper advertisements seeking out infected patients in what could be a huge class action suit against the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. Desai owns 65 per cent of the medical facility.

Nevada authorities have issued a health notification urging thousands of people who have used Desai’s facilities to get tested for infections.

So far, six cases of hepatitis C have been confirmed. Six of his facilities have been closed.

Dr. Desai is a politically savvy operator who owns several medical facilities in Nevada, is a contributor to both Democrats and Republicans and is friendly with the Nevada Governor, and sits on the Governor's Commission on Healthcare. According to AP:

He released a statement expressing concern for the patients and assuring the public the problems had been corrected. He later took out a full-page ad in Sunday's edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal insisting that needles had not been reused and that the chances of contracting an infection at the center in most of the last four years were "extremely low."

In bulk purchase a syringe costs less than 10 cents each!

"I find it baffling, frankly, that in this day and age anyone would think it was safe to reuse a syringe," said Michael Bell, associate director for infection control at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While Dr. Dipak Desai does not show up on this list of prominent NRI Indians his activities would cast a long and dark shadow over the vast majority of law abiding Indians in the U.S.

But that damage can be alleviated. What cannot be undone is the harm done to individuals and families. Some of them would have to pay with their lives for this penny-saving short cut.

The FBI has launched a probe into alleged Medicare fraud, and the Nevada State Board has announced that Dr. Dipak Desai has "voluntarily agreed to stop practicing medicine, at the board’s request until the board’s investigation into the operations and allegations concerning the center has been completed."

Las Vegas Closes Clinic Connected To Hepatitis C Outbreak

March 6, 2008 4:34 p.m. EST

Washington, DC (AHN) - The City of Las Vegas has closed down the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada last Friday after health officials reported six patients had contacted hepatitis C virus through shoddy practices.

The clinic was reusing syringes and vials. Officials are urging 40,000 patients who gets treatment at the center from March 2004 to January 11, 2008, to get tested for hepatitis C, hepatitis B and HIV.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev and CDC head Dr. Julie Gerberding strongly denounced the said practices at the clinic and should never occur in recent health care organizations.

"This is the largest number of patients that have ever been contacted for a blood exposure in a health-care setting. But unfortunately we have seen other large-scale situations where similar practices have led to patient exposures," Gerberding said.

Dr. Dipak Desai, head of the clinic post an open letter in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Sunday, conveying his deepest sympathy to all patients and their families for the fear and uncertainty that naturally arises from the situation.

Another unidentified local woman who now knows that she has hepatitis C said that she believed she acquired this virus after undergoing underwent treatment at the Endoscopy Center two years ago.

Hepatitis C can cause liver inflammation that is often asymptomatic, but ensuing chronic hepatitis can result later in cirrhosis (fibrotic scarring of the liver) and liver cancer. It is spread by blood-to-blood contact with an infected person's blood.

Cecilia Arceo - AHN

Vegas Hepatitis Exposure List Incomplete

Health inspections at 13 other outpatient surgical centers in the Las Vegas area found several violations of standard practices, Lisa Jones, head of the state licensing bureau, testified to a legislative committee on health care.

"We're finding problems at a variety of different levels — medication reuse, in some cases syringe reuse in different procedures and functions. That's why one of our very first actions is the need to get the word out on the street," Jones said.

She would not comment more precisely on the nature of violations in other surgical centers.

The public hearing was the first investigating an outbreak of the hepatitis C virus traced to the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. Six patients have been diagnosed with acute hepatitis C. The surgical center and five affiliated clinics have been closed, and five nurses have surrendered their licenses.

In the largest patient notification effort in U.S. history, nearly 40,000 people treated at the center from March 2004 to mid-January were sent letters telling them they are at risk for exposure and should be tested for hepatitis, strands B and C, and HIV.

Legislators also were told that some patients have not been notified because the Endoscopy Center did not provide a complete list of patients and investigators can't be sure when the unsafe practices began.

Hepatitis is a potentially fatal, blood-borne virus that causes inflammation of the liver and can lead to stomach pain, fatigue and jaundice. It goes undetected in as many as 80 percent of cases.

Health officials believe the virus was spread when clinic staff regularly reused syringes and vials of anesthesia intended to be used on one patient. Clinic staff told inspectors that the practice was ordered by management.

Inspectors also saw staff members inappropriately cleaning two scopes in one solution, officials said.

Health District chief Lawrence Sands said those practices are "unacceptable" and "should never have happened." Sands said reusing syringes and vials of medication was a well-known violation of common safety standards, and he called for better oversight, whistleblower protection and education within the medical community.

The clinic's majority owner, Dipak Desai, has refused to comment.

He released a statement expressing concern for the patients and assuring the public the problems had been corrected. He later took out a full-page ad in Sunday's edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal insisting that needles had not been reused and that the chances of contracting an infection at the center in most of the past four years were "extremely low." By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY