Addicted hospital worker exposed hundreds of patients to Hep C

Hmmm... I work in surgery and am wondering why the fentanyl was not locked up as well. But, remember we are dealing with an addict, they will do whatever they have to to get the drugs they need.

Our drugs are locked up in a metal box that the anesthesia keeps with them. Most of the time when the boxes are opened, is when the patient is going to sleep and at that time the surgery tech should be scrubbed in, so it would be difficult to distract someone and get a syringe.

I will admit I have seen narcotics left around by anesthesia. They are too trusting sometimes of the OR staff, and then this stuff happens and they come back to reality.

You have to remember that a surgical tech is not the same as a nurse tech or nurse aide...They are everywhere in the OR, and you see them in different OR's doing different things including helping to turn over anesthesia sometimes if the anesthesia tech isn't available, and are very familiar with a lot of drugs and how it's done in the OR. Today, lots of them are associate degree programs.

She obviously was good at this...I wonder if she was distracting anesthesia in different OR's and stealing, or maybe breaking into the drug boxes.

But here's another question...One thing a surgical tech is extremely trained in is sterile technique. So why the heck was she using dirty needles??? Idiot. Think of all the poor people she exposed...I never will get it...

I guess it's against the law for a place of employment to discriminate against people with addictions or communicable diseases. It seems the only obligation the hospital had was to advise her to be careful, then she's left on the honor system to comply. Unbelievable.

Some of those photos of her on myspace are creepy. She captioned one of them with "Evil ***** (aka female dog) How apt.