New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog : New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : The Grossman Law Firm : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

It's one of a patient's worst medical malpractice nightmares - a New Jersey doctor, whose clinic was allegedly the source of a hepatitis B epidemic which has already had five of his patients testing positive for the disease. Now, state regulators have indefinitely suspended the medical license of Doctor Parvez Dara.

Health inspectors have described the conditions at Dr. Dara's Toms River office, including blood stains on the floor of the room where the doctor conducted chemotherapy treatments. Inspectors found medication vials left open, and blood inside a bin used to store blood veils. They also found saline and gauze that had not been sterilized. Earlier, health officials had advised approximately 3,000 of Dara's patents to be tested for hepatitis B, after five cancer patients who were undergoing treatment under him, contracted the diseases. Two of his patients were confirmed to have hepatitis B in February, and three others tested positive later.  None of the five patients had any other risk factors for hepatitis B.

Attorneys for Dara insisted that there was no evidence linking him with the Hepatitis infection.  They also argued that the five patients who contracted Hepatitis B were treated at the same hospital, and could have contracted the infection there. However, the hospital was ruled out as the source of the contamination. Back in 2002, Dara paid $56,000 in fines for health code violations.

Hepatitis B is a viral infection that can lead to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. It's up to 100 times more infectious than the HIV virus.  Infected blood is one of the most common modes of transmission.

Medical Malpractice Lawyers

You shouldn't have to worry about contracting a deadly disease when you walk into your doctor's office for treatment. Unfortunately, the threat of being held accountable for errors and negligence by medical malpractice lawyers is often the only thing that coaxes health care professionals to carry out their responsibilities with care.

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New Jersey hospitals may soon be required to reveal not only the serious mistakes at their facility that have contributed to patient injuries or death, but also the identity of the facility. Until now, the state was not required to reveal the facilities responsible for making mistakes including such preventable ones as operating on the wrong part, leaving behind medical instruments or devices in the patients' body or allowing situations to develop that could lead to infections.

When the Patient Safety Act was passed 4 years ago, it required New Jersey's hospitals to report medical and surgical errors that occurred at the facility to the Department of Health and Senior Services. It was believed that Information about medical mistakes would foster a culture of accountability and openness.  Since the Act was passed, more numbers of errors are beginning to be reported, helping the DHSS to add to its database of errors that are likely to happen in a New Jersey hospital, and the best ways to help prevent these in future. At the time the Act was passed, legislators believed that hospitals would be more open about mistakes and disclosing information about these, if their names were not revealed. The bill was passed against the protests of patient safety groups who believed that such secrecy protected hospitals unfairly.

As covered in a recent article in the Star Ledger:  "The state would cull the information from billing records and publish it in its annual New Jersey Hospital Performance Report and make it available on the state website, Health and Senior Services Commissioner Heather Howard said."

"The bill also prevents hospitals that made the mistakes -- as well as physicians who have acknowledged playing a significant role in the error -- from seeking any payment for medical care associated with the error. "  I often receive inquiries from people who believe that they were victim's of medical malpractice and they cannot believe that they are still responsible for the physician's bills.   This part of the legislation may bring about fundamental fairness in these situations.   

The bill (S2471), approved unanimously by the Senate Health Senior Citizens and Human Services Committee in Trenton yesterday, provides broader disclosure under a compromise that hospital groups, the AARP, unions and state officials supported in principle.

It would require the health department to reveal the hospitals responsible for committing what the federal government deems the 14 most egregious mistakes. Those include operating on the wrong body part, leaving a sponge or other device inside a patient's body and allowing or creating a blood infection following surgery.

Since the Patient Safety Act was passed, critics have argued that the Act does not work to protect patients because it does not allow for the release of information about the specific hospitals where major surgical and medical errors were made. Knowing how many medical errors and what kind of errors have occurred in the state hospitals doesn't help patients make a decision while selecting a hospital for treatment. With this new legislation now giving patients access to the names of the hospitals where major mistakes have occurred, they are in a better position to make a decision based on comprehensive and accurate information. A law is not really a law if it doesn’t go as far it should to protect the rights of the people it's meant to protect. The reluctance of hospitals to have their identity revealed cannot be enough reason to keep this vital information from the public. As a Monmouth County medical malpractice lawyer who sees the results of preventable hospital errors on patients, I believe that this new legislation is just what the doctor ordered.

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