Here is a sampling of the recent television news and news paper headlines in New Jersey.
New law suits, some of them class actions. Reports of Hepatitis B infections. Lawyers and patients standing in front of TV cameras.
It’s been five weeks since the first stories broke about the HealthPlus ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. The headlines are still running.
New Jersey, which has more ASCs than either of its bigger neighboring states, New York and Pennsylvania, is reeling from this continuing news onslaught. How are physicians and patients and regulators processing the news? Will it affect other ASCs, not just HealthPlus?
The HealthPlus story broke in late December, when New Jersey reporters learned that the state Department of Health had issued a shut-down order after inspecting a HealthPlus location on September 7.
The facility was forced to send letters (just before Christmas!) to 3,778 former patients, saying they might have been infected with HIV, Hepatitis B, and/or Hepatitis C due to a wide range of bad infection control procedures in operating rooms and in the sterilization of surgical equipment and supplies.
So far, very few patients have claimed infections, but hundreds are seeing lawyers.
The negative headlines and social media publicity continue
Now, as of January 30, 2019, googling “healthplus surgery center in saddle brook” showed these headlines for the first five hits:
“HealthPlus Saddle Brooke NJ – See If You Have A Legal Case”
“Patients at surgery center wait to learn if they have HIV, hepatitis”
“Saddle Brook surgery center patients question handling of HIV tests”
“Lawsuit filed against NJ surgery center that exposed patients to HIV”
“N.J. Surgery Center Sued After 3,778 People Possibly Infected With …”
And the last two headlines are about different lawsuits. The horrifying mainstream news media headlines and news stories are the least of the consequences—but they’re certainly bad for anyone thinking about the business end of an ambulatory surgery center in North Jersey.
It gets worse if one digs in and reads these news stories. Here’s an example, a sub-headline and three paragraphs from a December 29, 2018 news story about the September 7 state inspection:
“‘Rust-like stains’ and a bloody sheet”
“Among the most alarming findings in the state’s report: Operating rooms at the facility were not properly cleaned and disinfected between procedures, upping the chances of exposure to dangerous diseases. According to the report, surgical tools were sometimes discovered with “brown rust-like stains” just before use.
“In one instance, a state inspector observed a stretcher in a hallway with a blood-stained sheet that wasn’t properly disinfected even after the inspector pointed out the problem to staffers.
Most troubling, a HealthPlus employee told a state inspector that ‘due to the high volume of procedures, surgical trays were not always allowed to dry in sterilizers before being used.’”
That gruesome story is at this URL.
