Personal Injury Law

Second Clinic Has Confirmed Hepatitis C Case

By Jane Akre

The Las Vegas clinic crisis has been expanded to include another facility. 

Health officials say they now have evidence that a second medical clinic may be responsible for the transmission of the contagious blood borne disease, hepatitis C. 

The Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center has been linked to a new case of hepatitis C in a patient who had an endoscopy procedure there. 

The patient visited June 14, 2006 and he became ill in July.  His visit to the clinic was reportedly his only risk factor for hepatitis.  

The patient's infection was never reported to public health officials as required by law.  Had the report been made, it might have alerted health officials one year earlier to procedures at the Endoscopy Center.  

The patient only came to light when he reported his infection to the Health District.

Dr. Dipak Desai is the majority owner of the Desert Shadow Clinic along with his wife, Dr. Kusum Desai and another partner Dilip Patel.

No word on whether this new case will spark a new round of calls for medical testing. The Health District began testing last week and it will be months before they have any numbers on the actual cases of infection.

So far 40,000 former patients of the Endoscopy Center are being asked to be tested for hepatitis C and B and HIV after six Endoscopy Center patients were confirmed to be infected with hepatitis C from a reused syringe that infected a vial of sedative.

That contaminate vial was then reused on other patients.   #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).