Posts
By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK—A New York City kidney dialysis center remains closed after state health inspectors found that nine patients contracted hepatitis C there over a seven-year period, according to a report released Thursday.
The Life Care Dialysis Center in Manhattan shut its doors in September after the inspectors found unsanitary conditions including blood on chairs and machines, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its summary of the investigation results.
Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by a virus and spread by contact with the blood of an infected person.
According to the report in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Life Care Dialysis Center staff members failed to change gloves between patients or to clean and disinfect equipment properly.
Once the patients tested positive for hepatitis C, the clinic failed to inform the patients or to notify the city Health Department, the CDC said.
After the first case was discovered, letters went out to more than 600 patients who had received dialysis there urging them to get tested.
The for-profit dialysis center was operated by DaVita Inc., an El Segundo, Calif.-based company that runs more than 1,400 outpatient dialysis centers. A message left at the company Thursday was not immediately returned.
Custom Search
Registration of your site
