Class-action lawsuit rejected in hepatitis C outbreak

November 6, 2008

After 70-year-old Eugenia Hedstrom was notified last winter by health officials that she should get tested for hepatitis and HIV, she worried about dying.

Night and day. Every day. Until she got word a couple of weeks later that tests showed she was in the clear.

“When you get a letter like that, it scares you like you wouldn’t believe,” Hedstrom said Wednesday as she sat in the offices of her attorney, Robert Cottle. “I had friends who got letters too, and they were scared out of their minds. It’s all you think about. It’s hard to do anything.”

Hedstrom, like tens of thousands of Southern Nevadans from 2004 to 2008, had gone to the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada for colonoscopies or other endoscopic procedures.

In February, health officials said at least six people contracted hepatitis C during procedures at the clinic because staff had contaminated single-use vials of medication and used them on multiple patients. The Southern Nevada Health District urged 40,000 clinic patients to get tested for potentially fatal blood-borne diseases.

Read Article: Las Vegas Review Journal

Posted By: Phoenix DUI Attorney