Are You Safe in Surgery?

Are You Safe in Surgery?

The problems of addiction affect people in every walk of life, including healthcare professionals, for whom access to controlled substances is easier. It’s easy to pass that off as a subset affected that doesn’t matter to anyone else, but consider the medical professional who feeds his addiction and ends up harming others.

The easiest access to addictive drugs is in the operating room. A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that just under 1 percent of anesthesiologists in their residencies during the period 1975-2009 had substance use disorders, with narcotic painkillers as the drug of choice. During that time, 28 residents died from substance abuse.

Those may not seem like alarming numbers, but the picture gets scarier when the focus turns to other medical professionals and recent events. In New Hampshire, David Kwiatkowski was recently sentenced to 39 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to stealing medications and infecting at least 45 people with the hepatitis C virus.

Kwiatkowski worked as a cardiac technologist in 18 hospitals across seven states. He began stealing morphine from operating rooms to feed his own opiate addiction and was infected with hepatitis C. For a decade after he was diagnosed, he stole syringes, usually of the narcotic painkiller fentanyl, self-injected them and replaced the used syringes (now contaminated with his tainted blood) filled with saline for the patients.

Thus far, more than 12,000 people across many states have been tested, at least 45 have been infected and one woman died.  Hepatitis C is difficult to treat and can lead to other problems like fatigue and depression. Kwiatkowski kept moving from job to job and was not discovered until he worked in New Hampshire. At his sentencing, victims and family members were allowed to speak to say how their lives had been affected by hepatitis C since they had crossed paths with Kwiatkowski.

Addicted professionals can hurt many people, but so can anyone addicted to opiates. Do you or someone you love need help finding drug rehab for opiates? Call Recovery Connection at 866-812-8231 for help.