A reckless and thoughtless surgical technician may have exposed thousands of patients at two Colorado surgical facilities to the potentially debilitating and deadly hepatitis C virus.
The immoral disregard for other people shown by Kristen Diane Parker is shocking. Now, 5,700 patients from Rose Medical Center and the Audubon Surgery Center in Colorado Springs must agonizingly wait for tests to determine whether Parker’s actions infected them.
Hospitals across the state should use this case as an opportunity to examine their security procedures, even though it’s practically impossible to prevent a sole actor, who so thoroughly lacks concern for patients’ health, from doing harm.
The 26-year-old technician, a former heroine addict who was warned by the hospital that she may have hepatitis C, took a powerful painkiller meant for patients, injected it into her own veins, and then refilled the syringes with salt water.
Parker’s deception meant that patients were injected through dirty needles with a placebo, which also exposed them to hepatitis C. She did this for months before she was questioned by state investigators and eventually confessed in interviews conducted June 22-25.
That confession capped an investigation her potential victims understandably question as lengthy. But it appears that health care officials acted relatively swiftly, given the challenges presented by federal confidentiality laws.
Though Rose discovered Parker might have hepatitis C when she was hired last October, the test results were tucked away in her personnel file. Because hepatitis C is deemed a disability, federal law prevented employment discrimination against Parker. Had she followed so-called universal precautions, patients would have been protected.
Rose didn’t know Parker was acting inappropriately until late March, when an employee reported a needle in the technician’s pocket stuck her. But Parker passed a drug test, and kept working.
On April 13, Parker was caught in an operating room to which she was not assigned, and then failed a drug test. Rose fired her, and Parker moved on to the Colorado Springs surgery center.
It was not until early June that the state Department of Public Health and Environment, which tracks hepatitis C cases, started reviewing several hepatitis C infections at Rose. By the end of the month, Parker confessed to her crimes.
Also in June, a technician admitted to stealing the same painkillers at Boulder Community Hospital. The facility enacted several security precautions that other hospitals ought to consider.
Automated drug-dispensing systems and ways to restrict narcotic medications to doctors, nurses and pharmacists make sense.
It’s impossible to protect against every sinister act. But we urge our health care professionals to study this outbreak carefully and make any appropriate changes to security as quickly as possible.
