Ottawa clinic warns 4,600 patients of hepatitis, HIV risk over unclean equipment

[Ryan Strome]

6 hours ago, SabreFan1 said:

Since the Ottawa clinic is part of your public care, don't be surprised if it turns out that they were re-using the same equipment while sending invoices to the government saying otherwise.

 

Use 1 needle on 5 people, get reimbursed by the government for 5 needles and then embezzle the extra ill-gotten funds received from the 4 you never bought.  On occasion, places here in the US get busted for defrauding both the government and insurance companies this same exact way.

 

There was more than medical malpractice going on at that Ottawa clinic.  One or more people were getting rich, or trying to, by defrauding Canadian taxpayers.

You make a good point and I'm thinking you're likely correct. I remember watching a story on American Greed where a doctor was selling cancer medicine but changed the doses to make money and patients ended up dying.

 

In this Ottawa case I assume the patients can now have a massive lawsuit against the government.

[VanGnome]

7 hours ago, SabreFan1 said:

Since the Ottawa clinic is part of your public care, don't be surprised if it turns out that they were re-using the same equipment while sending invoices to the government saying otherwise.

 

Use 1 needle on 5 people, get reimbursed by the government for 5 needles and then embezzle the extra ill-gotten funds received from the 4 you never bought.  On occasion, places here in the US get busted for defrauding both the government and insurance companies this same exact way.

 

There was more than medical malpractice going on at that Ottawa clinic.  One or more people were getting rich, or trying to, by defrauding Canadian taxpayers.

Lets say purely theoretically, the average patient cost to the clinic was 100 dollars. Now lets say through negligence, reusing equipment where possible, not using proper sterilization practices etc, they are able to reduce that by 75% per patient while billing for the full 100%.

Over the course of 4,600 patients, that's 345,000 and that's just accounting for patients who required blood samples and other needle/related equipment procedures to be performed. 4,600 over the course of a year is only 12 patients per day. Clinics see upwards of 50-100 patients per day easily. Given this was happening, there's a good chance that other practices were not being followed and they were able to falsely bill for those as well.

 

Medications? Write false prescriptions for controlled substances and get reimbursed, someone was definitely supplementing their income to the tune of 500K a year or more, depending on how long this was going on for.

[JM_]

50 minutes ago, VanGnome said:

Lets say purely theoretically, the average patient cost to the clinic was 100 dollars. Now lets say through negligence, reusing equipment where possible, not using proper sterilization practices etc, they are able to reduce that by 75% per patient while billing for the full 100%.

Over the course of 4,600 patients, that's 345,000 and that's just accounting for patients who required blood samples and other needle/related equipment procedures to be performed.

You're probably not that far off. Most of the money is in employee time to perform the cleaning and sterilizing and then amortizing the equipment so I wouldn't be surprised at all if the clinic owner was pocketing a 200k per year or more over this. 

 

Reusing single use devices isn't illegal on its own, you can do it according to the regulations but you have to have the records to prove its been cleaned to the original condition it was purchased in. Usually thats way too expensive for small clinics to do so you only see that in the big hospitals. So for this clinic to be doing this really is incredibly negligent and charges should be laid for fraud as well. 

 

[SabreFan1]

1 hour ago, Ryan Strome said:

You make a good point and I'm thinking you're likely correct. I remember watching a story on American Greed where a doctor was selling cancer medicine but changed the doses to make money and patients ended up dying.

 

In this Ottawa case I assume the patients can now have a massive lawsuit against the government.

 

57 minutes ago, VanGnome said:

Lets say purely theoretically, the average patient cost to the clinic was 100 dollars. Now lets say through negligence, reusing equipment where possible, not using proper sterilization practices etc, they are able to reduce that by 75% per patient while billing for the full 100%.

Over the course of 4,600 patients, that's 345,000 and that's just accounting for patients who required blood samples and other needle/related equipment procedures to be performed. 4,600 over the course of a year is only 12 patients per day. Clinics see upwards of 50-100 patients per day easily. Given this was happening, there's a good chance that other practices were not being followed and they were able to falsely bill for those as well.

 

Medications? Write false prescriptions for controlled substances and get reimbursed, someone was definitely supplementing their income to the tune of 500K a year or more, depending on how long this was going on for.

There was a case here in the US, Las Vegas specifically, where in 2008 it was discovered that a large gastroenterology group was reusing single-use needles as well as reusing single use medicine vials.  They ended up having to send out letters to almost 50,000 people to get checked for blood-bourne diseases.  Some people came back positive for Hep C, and since then, 3 people have died in the last decade.

 

The doctor who was the majority owner of the GI centre died in custody last year after being convicted and sentenced to life in prison.  His estimated net worth before he went to prison was in the low 9 figures.  People died because he wanted to get even richer than that.

[Neil HD]

So Ottawa residents not only can't trust their NHL team, they can't even trust their clinics.

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

16 hours ago, Alflives said:

This kind of stuff is criminal.  As healthcare costs continue to rise, and budgets are cut, 

our system suffers.  Is our current healthcare system sustainable?  I think not.  

Agreed it’s completely criminal.

 

Just crazy. They say the issues go back 15 years, so starting in 2003. That’s two decades after the AIDS crisis of the 80s.

 

Just inexcusable. They absolutely knew they were putting people at risk.

 

I can remember stories like this breaking many years ago from before people really knew better, and you could somewhat excuse it.

 

But post-2000, there’s just no way anyone could claim ignorance.

 

I mean, most friggin street junkies today use more hygienic practices with their gear than this clinic.

 

[CBH1926]

18 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

why? are you looking for one? 

 

Just asking for a friend

[JM_]

7 hours ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Agreed it’s completely criminal.

 

Just crazy. They say the issues go back 15 years, so starting in 2003. That’s two decades after the AIDS crisis of the 80s.

 

Just inexcusable. They absolutely knew they were putting people at risk.

 

I can remember stories like this breaking many years ago from before people really knew better, and you could somewhat excuse it.

 

But post-2000, there’s just no way anyone could claim ignorance.

 

I mean, most friggin street junkies today use more hygienic practices with their gear than this clinic.

 

Its worse - they would have had to attest to Health Canada that they had proper procedures in place and were following them to get an establishment license. So its an outright falsehood. They knew exactly what they were doing. 

 

[Tre Mac]

Nasty.  Makes me worried too, I recently went to Life Labs for a simple blood test. 

Holy moly, what kind of lazy, cheapskate slob makes it through med school anyways? 

 

Hope the doctors lose everything they have and spend a long time in jail. At least they'll be able to sew up eachothers torn rec.....

I think it's only a six week course to work at a clinic.  There maybe might be one doctor at a clinic, the rest are not even qualified to be nurses. 

[Mike Vanderhoek]

 

On ‎2018‎-‎07‎-‎21 at 8:16 PM, luckylager said:

Holy moly, what kind of lazy, cheapskate slob makes it through med school anyways? 

 

Hope the doctors lose everything they have and spend a long time in jail. At least they'll be able to sew up eachothers torn rec.....

The infractions ( some which are not ) that have been highlighted in the OP are things that are relegated to support staff. So technicians, assistants all the way own to the Janitorial staff will be required to clean and maintain things from equipment to garbages. These are not Doctor's roles within the clinic setting. 

[luckylager]

47 minutes ago, Tre Mac said:

Nasty.  Makes me worried too, I recently went to Life Labs for a simple blood test. 

I think it's only a six week course to work at a clinic.  There maybe might be one doctor at a clinic, the rest are not even qualified to be nurses. 

Thought the article is refering to a medical clinic and not a lab. 

[luckylager]

5 minutes ago, Mike Vanderhoek said:

 

The infractions ( some which are not ) that have been highlighted in the OP are things that are relegated to support staff. So technicians, assistants all the way own to the Janitorial staff will be required to clean and maintain things from equipment to garbages. These are not Doctor's roles within the clinic setting. 

So you're saying the actual doctors on staff aren't required to manage the support staff? Sound pretty silly eh.

 

The doctors would have to be extremely negligent or incredibly stupid to not recognize what was going on.

 

Talk about passing the buck, Mike. Are you a doctor?

 

 

[Mike Vanderhoek]

6 minutes ago, luckylager said:

So you're saying the actual doctors on staff aren't required to manage the support staff? Sound pretty silly eh.

 

The doctors would have to be extremely negligent or incredibly stupid to not recognize what was going on.

 

Talk about passing the buck, Mike. Are you a doctor?

 

 

sorry ?

 

doctors are not managers, this would be the role of well, a Manager and the duties to be performed by once again the support staff. A Doctor's role is to examine, diagnose, treat, and prescribe.

 

This is not passing the buck in any way. Once you've understood job titles and responsibilities within the clinic setting you will appreciate that while there is nobody saying a Doctor and or cannot perform such duties its is not in their job description nor is it something that a Doctor is afforded time for. Thus " support staff " perform all those duties.

[luckylager]

2 minutes ago, Mike Vanderhoek said:

sorry ?

 

doctors are not managers, this would be the role of well, a Manager and the duties to be performed by once again the support staff. A Doctor's role is to examine, diagnose, treat, and prescribe.

 

This is not passing the buck in any way. Once you've understood job titles and responsibilities within the clinic setting you will appreciate that while there is nobody saying a Doctor and or cannot perform such duties its is not in their job description nor is it something that a Doctor is afforded time for. Thus " support staff " perform all those duties.

So you're saying an attending physician, trained medical professional wouldn't notice the fact there's urine containers on the same counter he's doling out medication?

 

Ok Mike 

[Mike Vanderhoek]

18 minutes ago, luckylager said:

So you're saying the actual doctors on staff aren't required to manage the support staff? Sound pretty silly eh.

 

The doctors would have to be extremely negligent or incredibly stupid to not recognize what was going on.

 

Talk about passing the buck, Mike. Are you a doctor?

 

 

not in the sense that they direct others to perform cleaning, and autoclaving equipment, dispose properly of refuse etc....Doctors do utilize technicians, assistant staff in performing diagnostics and will provide a work order for those staff to perform on the patient. But a doctor isn't instructing staff on what to do in regards to all those other duties, a manager, director should be in place to ensure the duties are being done and up to standard. Sounds like a management issue.

[luckylager]

7 minutes ago, Mike Vanderhoek said:

sorry ?

 

doctors are not managers, this would be the role of well, a Manager and the duties to be performed by once again the support staff. A Doctor's role is to examine, diagnose, treat, and prescribe.

 

This is not passing the buck in any way. Once you've understood job titles and responsibilities within the clinic setting you will appreciate that while there is nobody saying a Doctor and or cannot perform such duties its is not in their job description nor is it something that a Doctor is afforded time for. Thus " support staff " perform all those duties.

Or when Dr. Dumb goes to wash his or her hands in the only sink on the clinic and there's no soap.

 

Or not notice the alcohol expired...

[Mike Vanderhoek]

3 minutes ago, luckylager said:

So you're saying an attending physician, trained medical professional wouldn't notice the fact there's urine containers on the same counter he's doling out medication?

 

Ok Mike 

considering again the doctor won't be the one " doling out " medication which in fact would go back to the technician or assistants which again is the very same people who would be required to correctly dispose of urine or clean instruments or disinfect the counter tops. I would suggest the physician would not notice if even be in the same vicinity. Not suggesting a doctor would never walk through or assist etc but the likelihood is lower than maybe you think ?

[luckylager]

3 minutes ago, Mike Vanderhoek said:

considering again the doctor won't be the one " doling out " medication which in fact would go back to the technician or assistants which again is the very same people who would be required to correctly dispose of urine or clean instruments or disinfect the counter tops. I would suggest the physician would not notice if even be in the same vicinity. Not suggesting a doctor would never walk through or assist etc but the likelihood is lower than maybe you think ?

Are you trying to convince me that there's no way the doctors would have noticed they're practising in an unsanitary, pig sty and they hold zero accountability for the conditions they work in?

[Mike Vanderhoek]

9 minutes ago, luckylager said:

Are you trying to convince me that there's no way the doctors would have noticed they're practising in an unsanitary, pig sty and they hold zero accountability for the conditions they work in?

I am not trying to convince you of anything nor do I feel a need to lol.

 

I never said a Doctor would never notice or bring up concerns or be just as guilty by not doing anything about it either. It was suggested that the doctors should be jailed and for a long time after losing everything and then they can sew each other up after getting torn I assume rectums ( jailhouse humor ? ) which again technically would more than likely fall on a technician haha.

 

I was pointing out there are duties performed in a clinic setting, the ones spoken about in this report suggest support staff were not doing their jobs properly, had no management and nobody including doctors appeared to have done anything. BUT the tasks and infractions outlines would not be duties that would be performed by a doctor is all.

 

I think I am in the majority here when I think this is not acceptable and is quite disappointing to have been happening.

[luckylager]

5 minutes ago, Mike Vanderhoek said:

I am not trying to convince you of anything nor do I feel a need to lol.

 

I never said a Doctor would never notice or bring up concerns or be just as guilty by not doing anything about it either. It was suggested that the doctors should be jailed and for a long time after losing everything and then they can sew each other up after getting torn I assume rectums ( jailhouse humor ? ) which again technically would more than likely fall on a technician haha.

 

I was pointing out there are duties performed in a clinic setting, the ones spoken about in this report suggest support staff were not doing their jobs properly, had no management and nobody including doctors appeared to have done anything.

Ok fine. My first post in this thread was a bit aggressive. I was under the impression doctors manage their clinic. 

 

They're still negligent and at fault. It happened and they must have known what was going on.

 

How'd a clinic with only one &^@#ing sink get licenced anyways?