Safety

Nearly 3,000 at risk from Colorado drug diversion case

Hospital Safety Insider, February 25, 2016

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A former employee at a Colorado hospital may have put thousands of patients at risk of disease after he allegedly swapped needles that could have been contaminated, according to a report from Campus Safety magazine.

According to the report, Rocky Allen, a surgical technician at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood was fired on January 22 and later arrested on charges of multiple crimes after police say he replaced syringes to gain access to controlled substances.

Investigators told Campus Safety that Allen switched a syringe containing fentanyl citrate with a similar syringe before a surgery in late January, and since then the hospital has warned 2,900 people to get tested for diseases that can be transmitted by needles, including HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C, as they may have been exposed.

Read more here.



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