Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times- November 17, 2007
According to state health officials, when giving a patient several different injections, Dr. Harvey Finkelstein had routinely used the same syringe to draw medicine or dye from multidose vials that were then used with other patients. This violated widely accepted practices and increased the likelihood that the vials could be contaminated and disease spread from one patient to another.
That's exactly what happened in at least one case, according to state and county investigations, buttressed by laboratory tests that found virtually identical forms of hepatitis C in two patients injected sequentially by Dr. Finkelstein.
In some ways this case seems almost inexplicable. Dr. Finkelstein is a well-trained and well-credentialed physician. He is a graduate of Tel Aviv University's medical school, did residency training in major Long Island hospitals and is board-certified in both anesthesiology and pain management. Yet he somehow must have convinced himself that there was no danger.
State and county health officials have been criticized, justifiably, for moving too slowly to alert Dr. Finkelstein's patients to their potential risk. It seems inexcusable that almost three years elapsed between when the state became aware of the problem and this week's notification to a final batch of 628 patients that they should be tested for two types of hepatitis and H.I.V. infection.
No disciplinary action was taken against the doctor; he was simply instructed in proper infection-control techniques and will be monitored for compliance.
The State Senate's health committee plans to hold hearings on how the case was handled, as well it should. It will be important to establish whether the state's investigating and disciplinary process is tilted too much toward protecting doctors rather than any patients who may have been harmed.
State officials plan to push for the elimination of multidose vials. That would provide the surest protection against such contamination, and not leave patients at the mercy of a doctor's ignorance or carelessness.
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