(Las Vegas)City shuts clinic, with harsh words for owners

Las Vegas SUN ^ | 1 MARCH 2008 | Marshall Allen

[radar101]

Official: Staff told to reuse vials, syringes to save money

Turns out, it was greed.

Dr. Dipak Desai, one of the state’s most prominent physicians, willfully chose to “mortally hazard his patients for profit” by operating an endoscopy clinic fraught with cost-cutting sloppiness, a Las Vegas city official said Friday.

Desai, who was a member of Gov. Jim Gibbons’ transition team in 2006, is the majority owner of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, the source of a disease outbreak that’s caused the largest hepatitis C scare in the country, according to health officials, who said 40,000 people who received anesthesia while undergoing endoscopic procedures there, including colonoscopies, must be tested immediately for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. The clinic was one of the busiest of its kind in Nevada.

When Jim DiFiore, manager of the city’s business services decision, suspended the facility’s license Friday, he cited previously undisclosed findings by health investigators who inspected the clinic in January.

DiFiore said in a letter to the clinic’s owners that Desai ordered his nurses to reuse syringes and reuse single-dose vials of medication when administering anesthesia to patients who received endoscopic procedures. The practice, which allowed cross contamination of patients’ blood, caused six people to become infected with hepatitis C.

Desai did it to save money, DiFiore said.

The state Licensure and Certification Bureau, which oversees the ambulatory surgical center, allowed it to stay open because the dangerous procedures were corrected.

But DiFiore quoted a health investigator who said, “It’s very hard to believe that they won’t do it again,” when explaining why he was shuttering the clinic.

“The fact that, once caught, you have agreed not to engage in a technique well known to the medical community to subject patients to death or serious illness again does not persuade me that you won’t do it again,” DiFiore wrote.

Desai and the other Endoscopy Center owners would not comment for this story, on the advice of their attorneys, Abran Vigil and Alan Sklar.

DiFiore, who referred to the investigators from the Southern Nevada Health District, the Licensure and Certification Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a “tiger team,” said he was told by a CDC officer that the Endoscopy Center practices were so obviously dangerous it was like “driving the wrong way down the freeway.”

“I do not believe that there is any department of motor vehicles in this country that would not immediately revoke the driving license of a driver when given credible evidence that the driver had driven the wrong way down the freeway every day for the past four years,” he wrote.

Citing more information provided by the health investigators, DiFiore said many nurses knew the technique was dangerous to patients, but they were ordered by administrators, mainly Desai, “to engage in the practice in order to save money.”

Some followed Desai’s orders and risked contaminating patients with life-threatening diseases, while others disobeyed him, DiFiore wrote.

Desai used to sit on the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners, which has now launched an investigation into the clinic, which is also owned by Dr. Vishvinder Sharma, Dr. Eladio Carrera and Dr. Clifford Carrol.

Dr. Jim Christensen, an allergist who is on the board of the Health District, said the allegations in DiFiore’s letter elevate the situation from malpractice to criminal behavior.

District Attorney David Roger promised “a massive investigation” into what occurred at the clinic.

[Flavius]

Official: Staff told to reuse vials, syringes to save money

Turns out, it was greed.

cool just like a 3rd world operation

[SE Mom]

They closed the clinic (duh)...

[OCCASparky]

Anyone here who thinks this won’t happen under Hillary/Obama/socialized medicine, raise your hand.

[Orange1998]

Desai ordered his nurses to reuse syringes and reuse single-dose vials of medication

Total disregard for his patients.

[denydenydeny]

Don’t you understand? HE WAS SAVING THE PLANET! /s

[radar101]

Dr. Dipak Desai is an American success story, an immigrant from India who built a small medical empire in the desert of Southern Nevada.

Now an aspect of that success is under scrutiny after health officials have determined that six patients treated at Desai's Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada were infected there with hepatitis C, a potentially lethal blood-borne virus. Investigators believe they became infected when workers used contaminated syringes and vials when injecting patients with medication.

Desai, a doctor in Nevada since 1980, is 65 percent owner of the center, according to Las Vegas city business license records. Three other doctors share ownership, with Dr. Eladio Carrera having the next largest stake with 14 percent, according to the records.

Desai has not commented publicly.

[Cold Heart]

BTTT

[o_zarkman44]

Any nurse who followed those orders to reuse biohazard material instead of proper disposal is also subject to license revocation.

Putting 40 thousand people at risk is a capital crime in my opinion. Everyone in clinic management is also at fault.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Anyone here who thinks this won’t happen under Hillary/Obama/socialized medicine, raise your hand.

This is happening under a non Hillary/Obama health care provider owned by a a majopr Republican supporter. Fix what is before complaining about something that isn't.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Anyone here who thinks this won’t happen under Hillary/Obama/socialized medicine, raise your hand.

This is happening under a non Hillary/Obama health care provider owned by a a majopr Republican supporter. Fix what is before complaining about something that isn't.

[NautiNurse]

I still can't fathom re-using the syringes "to save money." Syringes cost literally a dime a dozen. A search of medical supply companies shows 100 3cc syringes with needles cost about $17.00.

[OCCASparky]

My point is, under a socialized health care system similar to what exists in Britain and Canada, this sort of thing will become MORE common.

[rolling_stone]

Humm maybe the Dr. will soon be undergoing anesthesia less, endoscopy exams himself under less than sterile conditions in Prison.

[NautiNurse]

Desai can’t be convicted and imprisoned soon enough in my opinion. Unfortunately, he will receive far better quality of care in the prison system than he permitted his paying patients to receive.

[bigjackattack]

FMGs bringing the 3rd world to the USA, more coming soon!

[bigjackattack]

FMGs bringing the 3rd world to the USA, more coming soon!

[bigjackattack]

FMGs bringing the 3rd world to the USA, more coming soon!

[az_gila]

Anyone here who thinks this won’t happen under Hillary/Obama/socialized medicine, raise your hand.

This is happening under a non Hillary/Obama health care provider owned by a a major Republican supporter. Fix what is before complaining about something that isn't.

-----------------

Not the way I read the data.... he has given much more to Democrats than Republicans.

http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/dipak-desai.asp?cycle=08

[CIB-173RDABN]

Desai did it to save money.

---

I am willing to bet he did not save anywhere near the amount of money it is going to take to clean up this mess.

This is so wrong on so many levels.

Why would anyone risk their financial future to "save a little money?

Why would any of the professional staff, some of whom must be liscensed by the state risk their liscense to do something they know is wrong?

It has been many years since I have worked in the medical field, but I would have quit my job before doing something this wrong (and most likely gone public as well).

Shame on all those that knew what was going on and kept quiet, and double shame on those that went along with it.