A 10th hepatitis C case was diagnosed at a Colorado hospital where a surgery technician has been accused of swapping used syringes for clean ones filled with pain medication, health officials said Wednesday.
Ned Calonge, chief medical director for the state health department, said the 10 hepatitis C cases involve people who had surgery at Rose Medical Center in Denver, which had employed 26-year-old Kristen Diane Parker.
Parker is accused of is accused of injecting herself with painkillers meant for patients, then filling the used syringes with saline solution. Up to 6,000 patients may have been exposed to the blood-borne liver disease at Rose and at Colorado Springs' Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center between October and June 29.
The surgery patients are being test for hepatitis C.
Rose Medical Center officials have said Parker took a blood test before starting her job in October, and tested positive for hepatitis C. They said people with the disease aren't barred from working in hospitals if precautions are taken.
But Parker's attorney, Gregory Graf, said during a court hearing Monday that his client did not find out she had the disease until police contacted her, which was sometime in April
Parker was scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday for a preliminary hearing on charges of tampering with a consumer product, creating a counterfeit controlled substance, and obtaining a controlled substance by deception or subterfuge.
If convicted of all charges, Parker faces a maximum of 34 years in prison.
Copyright 2009 AP News
