A blog posted on NPR’s Health Blog today, discussed the recent arrest of David Kwiatkowski in New Hampshire. Kwiatkowski spent five years as a traveler working for staffing agencies before getting a full time job at Exeter Hospital in the spring of 2011.
Federal prosecutors believe the 33 year-old would inject himself with Fentanyl and then refill syringes with a saline solution. He would then put the saline filled syringes into circulation to be used on patients.
He is now being blamed for infecting at least 30 people with Hepatitis C with the dirty needles. It is believed that Kwiatkowski may have exposed patients in at least seven other states where he worked in hospitals, including Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.
In a written statement, Exeter Hospital said Kwiatkowski was drug-tested and given a background check upon arriving in New Hampshire. In addition, medical staffing firms are also supposed to do a background investigation on their temps.
Those background checks, however, appear to have missed at least one major red flag. In April 2010, Kwiatkowski was fired from the Arizona Heart Hospital 11 days after arriving for a temporary assignment when he was found unresponsive in the men’s locker room. At that time he had syringes and needles in his possession and tested positive for marijuana and cocaine. Management alerted the Phoenix Police Department.
Although Kwiatkowski was fired and lost his technician’s license in Arizona, he was placed by a new staffing firm at a hospital in Philadelphia that same month.
While the massive investigation continues, thousands of patients in New Hampshire, and around the country, continue to get tested for Hepatitis C.
Read the full blog here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/31/157618353/medical-technician-might-have-exposed-hundreds-to-hepatitis-c
New Hampshire Newspaper Report:
The Union Leader is reporting that the “Hepatitis C ‘calamity’ at Exeter Hospital might have been prevented had a hospital in another state taken action years ago, the state’s top federal prosecutor says.”
New reports allege that four years before his arrest in New Hampshire, David Kwiatkowski was caught stealing Fentanyl at a hospital in another state.
“U.S. Attorney John Kacavas, whose office is prosecuting the former Exeter Hospital employee for allegedly infecting patients with hepatitis C through contaminated syringes, says the 2008 incident should have been reported to authorities.”
An affidavit filed in the New Hampshire case states “An employee in an operating room observed Kwiatkowski enter an operating room, lift his shirt, put a syringe in his pants, move his arms quickly near a medication … and exit the room.”
The report also details a subsequent review of the narcotics in the room that showed that the Fentanyl was missing and replaced with “another liquid”. The employee reported that Kwiatkowski was sweating and acting strange. In addition, the report states that “three empty syringes bearing Fentanyl labels were found on his person. An empty morphine sulfate syringe and a needle were later found in his locker. A drug test found Fentanyl and opiates in Kwiatkowski’s urine.”
The article reports that Kwiatkowski’s victims are very upset about these recent developments that show that this tragedy could have been prevented.
So far, health departments in Michigan, Maryland and Georgia have told the New Hampshire Sunday News they are looking into whether Kwiatkowski might have exposed patients at hospitals in those states to hepatitis C.
Johns Hopkins Hospital announced Friday it has begun notifying 200 patients who may have been exposed to hepatitis C when Kwiatkowski worked there in 2009 and early 2010.
Court records show Kwiatkowski was hospitalized on June 23 after a concerned family member called the police, who found Kwiatkowski at a hotel in Boxborough, Mass. Investigators found an empty syringe with a blue sticker labeled “Fentanyl” that matched the syringes used at Exeter’s lab in Kwiatkowski’s vehicle.