The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, said this week that it is contacting an additional 2,100 patients who may have contracted hepatitis C, allegedly from an interventional radiologic technologist (RT) who was stealing drugs within the facility.
The Mayo Clinic announced in August that several cases of hepatitis C -- one of them fatal -- had been traced to the RT as a possible source of transmission. Mayo officials said the RT had admitted to taking fentanyl intended for patients and returning dirty needles to the hospital's supplies. More than 3,200 patients were believed to be at risk of exposure.
On September 20, Mayo announced that it has determined that an additional 2,100 patients could be at risk. The additional patients are mostly those who were treated at the interventional radiology department at St. Luke's Hospital from 2004 to April 11, 2008, when the Mayo Clinic owned St. Luke's Hospital.
As with the original patient population, Mayo is contacting these new patients to ask them to undergo testing for hepatitis C. The hospital said that 2,400 patients have already been tested.
Related Reading
Mayo says 3K patients at risk in hep C scandal, September 3, 2010
Mayo fires RT after hep C transmission, August 26, 2010
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