Doctors who have spent their careers at Rose Medical Center say that the hospital’s reputation may be temporarily sullied during the hepatitis C crisis but that it can pull through if it is forthcoming with patients.
Over lunches and in the hospital break rooms, doctors — some retired, some still practicing — are bemoaning that a single former surgical technician with a drug habit has sparked such a crisis.
Dr. Melvyn Klein, a nephrologist at Rose, said he’s seen three patients in the past couple of weeks who have been exposed.
“They’re very nice people, and this brought it home to me,” he said. “It brought it down to a personal level. These patients, even if they turn out to be negative, it’s a kind of stress and it’s exposing the vulnerable. It still hurts.”
Former head of surgery Dr. Gilbert Hermann said the situation makes him sad. “What a terrible thing to happen to this very good hospital,” he said. But he added, “It will be OK because of the quality. It’s very high.”
After World War II, a group of Jewish philanthropists raised money to start the east side hospital, in part so Jewish doctors had a comfortable place to practice. It was hard for Jews to get jobs elsewhere, doctors said.
Rabbi Hillel Goldberg’s father, Max, helped raise funds for the hospital by persuading movie stars of the day, including Errol Flynn and Eddie Cantor, to come to Denver. When the hospital laid its cornerstone in 1948, Max Goldberg got Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to come to the ceremony.
Rose opened in 1949.
“I’m flabbergasted by my dad’s wisdom,” said Goldberg, executive editor of the Intermountain Jewish News.
The hospital operated as a community hospital until 1995, when it was bought by Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. — something Goldberg called a “traumatic experience for the community.”
Dr. Stuart Gottesfeld, a retired obstetrician and gynecologist who still teaches residents in the mornings at Rose, said he voted for the takeover and felt that he was betraying his father, also a physician at the hospital.
Klein says the hepatitis C case may reveal some “chinks in the armor” at Rose. But he blames most of the problems on changes in health care — busier doctors, heightened corporate demands, primary-care physicians not always following patients to the hospital — rather than anything happening, in particular, at Rose.
Klein, who has worked at Rose for 37 years, said that as long as the hospital is up front with patients about the problem and solutions, “this will pass.”
Doctors don’t usually suspect that “malicious thieves” are sitting in the operating room with them, he said.
Gottesfeld has seen addiction before, mostly among doctors. “It’s almost impossible to stop them,” he said. “You’ll do almost anything in the world to stop them, and they’ll still get (drugs).”
Dr. Jeff Mishell, who was vice president of medical affairs at Rose before it was bought by the for-profit corporation, wasn’t so generous.
The hepatitis incident, he said, didn’t shock him.
“I think in this case, the thing speaks for itself,” Mishell, now retired, said. “If they had procedures to prevent this, then how did it happen?”
Allison Sherry: 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com
