Surgical Tech Accused of Spreading Hepatitis C
The hepatitis C infections of 35 people have now been linked to a surgical scrub technician accused of stealing syringes of powerful painkillers and substituting them with used needles.

September 12, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Surgical Tech Accused of Spreading Hepatitis C

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The hepatitis C infections of 35 people have now been linked to a surgical scrub technician accused of stealing syringes of powerful painkillers and substituting them with used needles.

Kristen Diane Parker, a scrub tech at Rose Medical Center in Denver and Audubon Surgical Center in Colorado Springs, faces charges of tampering and illegally obtaining a controlled substance. She's accused of taking syringes filled with Fentanyl -- a painkiller approximately 100 times more powerful than morphine -- replacing the drug with saline and returning the used syringe, to be later used on patients.

The patients infected with hepatitis C, an infectious disease affecting the liver, displayed no prior indications of the disease before their hospital stays.

Legal and medical experts say there are systems in place in hospitals to prevent dirty or infected needles from being used. They say it's possible those systems may have failed patients at Rose and Audubon.

Hepatitis C is is a liver disease that can become a chronic condition leading to cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. Treatments include months of drug combination shots; in severe cases, liver transplant surgery is required (drug treatments continue after the surgery because the disease often returns).

Colorado law has a cap of $300,000 on medical malpractice awards for pain and suffering. Total awards are capped at $1 million, though judges can make exceptions for higher awards.

As screening of patients continues, it appears that as many as 5,700 people who had surgery at Rose and Audubon are potential victims.

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