Audubon: No patients got Hepatitis C from ex-employee

The sole patient from Audubon Surgery Center who was thought to have possibly contracted Hepatitis C from a former employee there got the disease elsewhere, Audubon officials said Monday.

Audubon said the patient was ruled out based on DNA analysis conducted by state health officials.

“Basically, now that Audubon has completed testing, there is no evidence that any patient at Audubon was infected with Hepatitis C from the former employee, and possibly none were ever actually exposed,” Audubon spokeswoman Amy Triandiflou said in an e-mail to The Gazette.

The former employee, Kristen Diane Parker, has pleaded guilty to several federal charges that she infected at least 16 patients at Rose Medical Center in Denver with the viral liver disease.

Authorities say Parker, who knew she had Hepatitis C, was stealing fentanyl, a powerful painkiller for surgical patients, and substituting it with her own dirty needles filled with saline when she worked at Rose. There were concerns that the same thing happened at Audubon, where she went to work later. That led health officials to declare that thousands of patients — 1,220 of them at Audubon — may have been exposed.

Last month, Audubon fought prosecutors’ request to release the identity of the one patient, whom Audubon called Patient B. The patient did want to be identified unless the DNA analysis proved a link to Parker.

More than 98 percent of the identified patients at Audubon have been tracked down and tested, Triandiflou said. The remaining 27 patients have not responded to repeated phone calls and e-mails. Audubon will continue to try and reach them for the next few weeks, but Triandiflou said it was unlikely positive tests would appear.

Sixteen cases of Hepatitis C cases were discovered at Audubon during the investigation, but none have been linked to Parker. Hepatitis C is often symptomless, so often it goes undiagnosed.

Parker’s guilty plea includes a 20-year prison sentence. She is scheduled for sentencing in December.
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