Former Exeter Hospital Worker Indicted in Hepatitis C Outbreak
David Kwiatkowski, the former Exeter Hospital medical technician who allegedly caused the hepatitis C outbreak this past summer, has been indicted on counts ranging from tampering with a consumer product and seven counts of obtaining controlled substances by fraud.
“Kwiatkowski used the stolen syringes to inject himself, causing them to become tainted with his infected blood, before filling them with saline and then replacing them for use in the medical procedure,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Concord, New Hampshire, said in a statement announcing the charges. “Consequently, instead of receiving the prescribed dose of fentanyl, patients instead received saline tainted by Kwiatkowski’s infected blood.”
The hepatitis C outbreak has affected other states besides New Hampshire and the investigation is ongoing. Kwiatkowski began working at New Hampshire’s Exeter Hospital in April 2011, ten months after being diagnosed with hepatitis C.
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