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State: 8,500 More Patients At Risk In Needle Scare

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Dec 12, 2007 6:28 am US/Eastern

State: 8,500 More Patients At Risk In Needle Scare

Doctor Said To Reuse Syringes On Patients

MELVILLE, N.Y. (AP) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 1: Health officials have said Long Island anesthesiologist Dr. Harvey Finklestein dipped syringes more than once into vials of medicine, contaminating the drugs and infecting at least one person with hepatitis. (File)
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About 8,500 additional patients of a Long Island doctor will be advised to get tested for blood-borne diseases as a probe into his practice expands, a state Health Department spokeswoman said.

The agency initially told 628 of Dr. Harvey Finkelstein's patients last month that they might be at risk for hepatitis and HIV. Health officials have said the Long Island anesthesiologist dipped syringes more than once into vials of medicine, contaminating the drugs and infecting at least one person with hepatitis. Finkelstein has said he has changed his technique.

After getting calls from more of Finkelstein's patients, the Health Department has sent a similar notice to another roughly 1,200 people and plans to send it to 8,500 more, spokeswoman Claudia Hutton said Tuesday.

"As it turned out, it was a much bigger universe than what we were led to believe" by the information Finkelstein initially supplied, Hutton said. She said a change in his billing system had caused some confusion for his staff, and the physician also kept some patient records at his home.

Hutton said she had no comment on whether the doctor purposefully tried to curtail the investigation.

A woman answering the phone at Finkelstein's home said, "There will be no comment."

Hutton said it wasn't known whether the thousands of patients soon to be notified had gotten injections from Finkelstein, and they would not need to be tested if they hadn't.

The Nassau County Health Department has said recent tests found six hepatitis B cases and six hepatitis C cases among Finkelstein's patients, but it's unclear whether the liver infections stemmed from Finkelstein's needle technique.

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