A man who claims to have contracted hepatitis C at MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup has filed a lawsuit suit against the hospital.
2,600 Patients Possibly Exposed To Hepatitis C
Good Samaritan revealed late last month that a nurse with hepatitis C may have exposed thousands of its patients to the virus, and is warning 2,600 of the patients who had contact with the nurse.
Hepatitis C is transmitted through infected blood and can cause chronic liver disease. Many people do not know they are infected until they have some liver damage.
The patients the hospital deemed at risk are those who received injections narcotic, antihistamine, or sedatives from the nurse in the emergency room between Aug. 4, 2017, and March 23. The patients said that the group represents less than 5 percent of the number of patients treated in the Emergency Department during the period.
"We have taken extensive measures to identify anyone who may have been at risk for exposure," Good Samaritan President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Bredeson said in a hospital statement released on April 30.
Lawsuit Over Failure To Monitor Erring Nurse
One of the 2,600 patients now alleges he contracted Hepatitis C at the hospital. The lawsuit in Pierce County Superior Court claims that the man was being treated for kidney stones at the hospital in December. Months later, he was tested positive for Hepatitis C.
The client's lawyer Amanda Searle said that the man is suing Good Samaritan and MultiCare Health System for failure to properly train, investigate, and monitor the nurse after patient complaints.
"This is a lawsuit against Good Samaritan for a negligence cause of action," Searle said. "Our concerns are primarily on Good Samaritan's practices with respect to their notice that this nurse had medication practice issues and they didn't do anything about it."
The lawsuit was filed on Friday following the arrest of the 31-year-old nurse Cora Weberg, who was suspected of stealing narcotics and exposing thousands of patients to the virus. Authorities think that the nurse was using portion of patients' narcotics for her own use and then used the same needle to inject the patients.
Weberg, who was caught at the Canadian border, is no longer connected with the hospital but her lawyer said that claims about her are false and there are no direct DNA link between her and the infected patients.
The hospital is now testing former patients suspected to have been exposed to Hepatitis C.
