MURFREESBORO, Tenn. --- Former patients who tested positive for HIV or hepatitis will not be able to show they were infected by tainted equipment at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, a top doctor for the agency said Friday.
Dr. Jim Bagian, the VA's chief patient safety officer, said the patients won't be able to prove they were even exposed to endoscopic equipment that wasn't properly sterilized. The equipment is used for colonoscopies and ear, nose and throat procedures. It was discovered in December that equipment was either not properly cleaned or set up.
Five patients have tested positive for HIV and 33 for hepatitis since February, when the VA started notifying more than 11,000 people treated at three VA medical centers to get follow-up blood checks because they could have been exposed to infectious body fluids. The hospitals are in Augusta; Miami; and Murfreesboro, Tenn.
The blood tests are continuing. The agency has stressed that the positive results for the diseases might not have come from the VA's problems with dirty equipment.
"At this point I don't think we'll ever know" how the patients were infected, Dr. Bagian said.
Some veterans and members of Congress want more explanation than that.
"Some of them did not have these infections before their colonoscopies," said Mike Sheppard, a Nashville lawyer representing some former VA patients who tested positive for HIV and hepatitis.
Mr. Sheppard said the only way to find out how the infections were contracted is by examining all medical records, which are in the hands of the VA.
The U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs has tentatively set a June hearing for the VA inspector general to report on a review of the mistakes.
A spokesman for the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy said although the patients recently tested positive, they could have had the viruses for years before the VA treated them. "I don't believe there is going to be any way to definitively link their HIV-positive status to the facility," Dr. David A. Greenwald said Friday in a telephone interview from the Montefiore Medical Center in New York.
The discovery of an equipment mistake at Murfreesboro led to a nationwide safety "step-up" by the VA at its 153 medical centers. Since then, the problems have been discussed with staff at all VA hospitals and with representatives of the equipment maker.
Each of the three centers had a different problem operating equipment made by Olympus American, according to the VA. In Augusta, the scopes used for looking into the nose and throat weren't properly cleaned.
In Murfreesboro, the equipment was incorrectly rigged because of a mix-up and might have allowed body fluid residue to transfer from patient to patient.
In Miami, a tube meant to be cleaned after each colonoscopy was instead cleaned at the end of each day, Dr. Bagian said.
All the problems were human error, he said.
Comments
Yeah right, they should be ashamed of themselves treating these people that way after they made a mistake. My uncle is one of the vets that were tested and he was fine, but what if he hadn't been. That's so sad the government should be apologizing and compensating these people instead of accusing them.
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