EXETER — Multiple Exeter Hospital patients complained during a special meeting held by the state Friday night about having to be re-tested for hepatitis C because the hospital sent the state expired blood samples.
The complaint was brought up on several occasions by patients and attorneys during the roughly two-hour public meeting on the Exeter Hospital hepatitis C outbreak held at Exeter High School.
State Health Director Jose Montero said the blood samples taken for the hepatitis C testing expire after 72 hours and the hospital didn’t deliver 27 samples to the state lab in time earlier this week.
“It was an issue of coordination and we’re investigating how it happened,” Montero said.
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Attorney Peter McGrath of Concord, who has filed two class action lawsuits against Exeter Hospital, said he has multiple clients who don’t want to go back to Exeter Hospital. He questioned why the hospital is still open while the state is investigating the outbreak.
McGrath’s concern was shared by a number of residents.
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Drug diversion has been ruled the likely cause of the outbreak. Montero said that in drug diversion cases a hospital employee typically steals a syringe containing medication while procedures are taking place, injects himself or herself, fills the syringe back up with saline solution, then the syringe gets re-used on the patient.