VA Hot Line Established for Veteran Colonoscopies

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Posted on 7th April 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 4/7/2009

The VA has established a 24-hour toll-free hot line for patients and their families at (877) 575-7256.

BILL POOVEY
Associated Press Writer

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — The Veterans Affairs Department is investigating whether there’s a link between a patient’s positive HIV test and unsterilized equipment that may have exposed thousands of veterans to infectious diseases.

The positive test was the first reported since the department warned veterans treated at three clinics that they might be at risk.

The VA previously reported that hepatitis was found in 16 patients, but the agency cautioned there was no way to prove that the patients contracted the illnesses because of treatment at their facilities.

In an e-mail late Friday, the agency said it was investigating “the possibility of such a relationship.”

The VA earlier this year warned more than 10,000 veterans to get blood tests because they could have been exposed to contamination while getting colonoscopies in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Miami.

The endoscopic equipment in question was also used at an ear, nose and throat facility in Augusta, Ga. All three sites failed to properly sterilize the equipment between treatments.

The VA has said it does not yet know if veterans who were treated with the same kind of equipment at its other 150 hospitals may have been exposed to the same mistake before the department had a nationwide safety training campaign. An agency spokeswoman has said the VA is certain the mistake with the equipment was corrected nationwide by March 14.

The problems dated back for more than five years at the Murfreesboro and Miami hospitals.

So far, less than a third — 3,174 — have been notified of their test results. The agency also is trying to locate patients whose warning letters were returned.

The statement Friday did not say where the patient who tested positive for HIV was treated, and the agency did not return telephone and e-mail messages Monday.

In all, at least five veterans have tested positive for hepatitis B and 11 for hepatitis C, which is potentially life-threatening.

No infections have been reported from Miami.

All three sites used endoscopic equipment made by Olympus American Inc., which said in a statement it is helping the VA address problems with “inadvertently neglecting to appropriately reprocess a specific auxiliary water tube.”

The problem put patients at risk of being exposed to other patients’ body fluids.

Megan Longenderfer, an Olympus spokeswoman, said the company sent notices to 5,800 “customer accounts,” but a facility could have more than one endoscope.

A lawyer with more than a dozen clients who had colonoscopies at the VA hospital in Murfreesboro said some have tested positive for hepatitis but none for HIV.

Attorney Mike Sheppard said in an e-mail Monday that one client had espoghageal cancer and died from “massive infection” soon after getting a colonoscopy. He said medical records are being reviewed for any connection between the infection and exposure.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

VA: 16 patients of problem clinics infected

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Posted on 27th March 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 3/27/2009

BILL POOVEY
Associated Press Writer

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Viral infections, including hepatitis, have been found in 16 patients exposed to contaminated equipment at Veterans Affairs medical facilities, a department spokeswoman said Friday.

So far, 10 colonoscopy patients from the VA medical center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., have tested positive for hepatitis, VA spokeswoman Katie Roberts told The Associated Press. In a later e-mail, she reported six patients at the VA’s ear, nose and throat clinic in Augusta, Ga, tested positive for unspecified viral infections.

The number of reported infections could rise.

More than 10,000 veterans were warned to get blood tests because they could have been exposed to contamination at those two facilities plus a medical center in Miami. All three sites failed to properly sterilize equipment between treatments, and the problems dated back for more than five years at the Murfreesboro and Miami hospitals.

Roberts said the department doesn’t yet have results from most of the veterans it warned.

A VA alert to patients said they “could have been exposed to body fluids from a previous patient.”

Roberts said four Tennessee patients have tested positive for hepatitis B and six have tested positive for hepatitis C. No one has tested positive for HIV, she said.

Hepatitis is a viral infection of the liver. The most common form, hepatitis C, is potentially life-threatening and can cause permanent liver damage. Both the B and C forms are spread by contact with the blood or other body fluid of an infected person, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Roberts stressed that the source of the infections isn’t known and may never be identified.

“There’s no way to scientifically, conclusively prove they contracted this due to treatment at our facility,” Roberts said.

But the VA will make sure those who tested positive “get the best possible treatment,” she said.

The VA’s inspector general office has started a review, spokeswoman Joanne Moffett said Friday.

According to a VA e-mail, only about half of the Murfreesboro and Augusta patients notified by letter of a mistake that exposed them to “potentially infectious fluids” have requested department blood tests.

Some veterans said they decided to seek tests from their private physicians, rather than the VA.

The public first became aware of problems in February, when the agency announced it had sent letters to about 6,400 patients who had colonoscopies between April 23, 2003, and Dec. 1, 2008, at Murfreesboro and to about 1,800 patients treated over 11 months last year at Augusta.

Roberts said the problem in Tennessee was discovered in December and an internal alert was issued.

This week the VA announced it sent letters advising 3,260 patients who had colonoscopies between May 2004 and March 12 at the Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System that they also should get tests for HIV, hepatitis and other infectious diseases.

“We feel that the risk of cross-contamination among patients is small, and many patients are at no risk whatsoever,” Dr. William E. Duncan of the VA Health Administration said in an e-mail. “Since we cannot know which patients are at risk, we are notifying everyone we feel may possibly have been placed at risk.”

Two weeks after a review of procedures and training at VA facilities nationwide, Roberts said the VA cannot yet say if patients at other locations were exposed to equipment that was not properly sterilized.

U.S. Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said VA officials told her and other members of Congress on Thursday that the Miami facility initially reported it was free from problems only to later backtrack.

Ros-Lehtinen said the details were disclosed by the VA in a closed-door meeting convened by U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the top Republican on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Washington, said he has notified his 20,000 newsletter subscribers about the situation.

“We are obviously very concerned anytime anybody’s health is at risk from going to see the doctor,” he said Friday. “We believe the VA has done an adequate job in quickly notifying those veterans who might be affected.”

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Associated Press writer Matt Sedensky in Miami contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

VA clinic warns of possible contaminant exposure

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Posted on 14th February 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 2/14/2009

By BILL POOVEY
Associated Press Writer

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Thousands of patients at a Veterans Administration clinic in Tennessee may have been exposed to the infectious body fluids of other patients when they had colonoscopies in recent years, and now VA medical facilities all over the U.S. are reviewing their own procedures.

A spokesman at the Alvin C. York VA Medical Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., said the clinic is offering free blood tests and medical care to all patients whose records show they had colonoscopies between April, 23, 2003 and Dec. 1, 2008.

Christopher Conklin said in a telephone interview Friday that notification letters were sent this week by registered mail to 6,378 patients of the Murfreesboro facility. He said no related health problems have been reported, and every measure is being taken to assure that affected veterans are screened.

VA officials also said a problem was found with equipment at an ear, nose and throat clinic at the VA medical center in Augusta, Ga., and 1,800 veterans have been notified they may have been exposed to infection there.

One veteran who received notification from the Murfreesboro clinic, Gary Simpson, 57, said, “The fact that it took five years for them to catch a mistake like that — it seems like somebody should have caught an incorrect valve and incorrect cleaning of the equipment during that time.” His wife Janice called the discovery “sickening” and “horrifying.”

Conklin said a valve on equipment used in the colonoscopies was discovered wrongly connected Dec. 1 and the mistake was traced back to April 23, 2003.

A statement from the VA said that in response to the discovery at Murfreesboro and an inspection that found a problem with endoscopic equipment at the VA medical center in Augusta, Ga., all VA medical centers and outpatient clinics are reviewing procedures in a special training program described as a “step-up.”

A VA statement released Monday said 1,800 veterans who were treated in Augusta, Ga., from January through November last year in the ear, nose and throat clinic at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center are being notified “that they may have been exposed to infection because the instrument used in the procedure was improperly disinfected.” The statement described the risk of infection as “extremely small.”

Simpson, a Tennessee Valley Authority retiree who lives in Spring City, received his notice Wednesday and went Thursday to a local doctor for a blood screening. He was awaiting results Friday of tests that included HIV and hepatitis.

Simpson, who served in the U.S. Army from 1970 to 1974, said he had a colonoscopy at the clinic in Murfreesboro in 2007.

His wife said she was “praying it comes out OK.”

She said the notification letter refers to an incorrect valve and also to “tubing attached to the scope that may not have been properly cleaned between patients.”

“I would like to know if they were using tubing that should have been thrown out,” she said.

A statement released by Conklin said that while the “valve-tube connection does not come in direct contact with a patient, there is a possibility patients may have been exposed to infection.”

“We know this will upset many veterans,” Juan Morales, director of VA Tennessee Valley Health Care System that includes the Murfreesboro clinic, said in the statement. “Both circumstances present a minimal risk of exposure to the veterans who had this procedure. We believe this aggressive approach to notification enforces our commitment to those we serve.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.