More than 2 years after thousands of military veterans learned that they may have been treated with contaminated endoscopes at 3 Veterans Administration hospitals, the first malpractice case stemming that revelation has begun trial, with more than $1 million in damages at stake.
Ervin Gonzalez, attorney for 69-year-old Air Force veteran Robert Metzler, said during opening arguments in federal court Monday that his client contracted hepatitis C when he was "scoped by a dirty scope" at a Miami VA hospital in 2007, and that the disease and its treatment will cost him an estimated $2.5 million in financial losses, according to the Miami Herald. Mr. Metzler's malpractice suit also seeks $750,000 each for his and his wife's mental anguish over the disease.
"I feel terrible," Mr. Metzler told reporters. "They've ruined my life."
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Rosen, representing the VA in this case, disputes Mr. Metzler's claims. In his opening arguments, he promised to produce medical evidence that the hepatitis C virus could not have been transmitted to Mr. Metzler from a dirty endoscope, because the only patient to be treated at the facility within the span of time the virus can live outside the body (1 day or less) tested negative for it.
Mr. Rosen also planned to argue that new drugs that can kill the virus and essentially cure Mr. Metzler's disease are now available.
Despite these arguments, the defendants don't deny that thousands of veterans may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV from improperly cleaned endoscopes used at VA hospitals in Florida, Tennessee and Georgia between 2004 and 2009. Improper endoscope reprocessing practices were detected and notices were sent to nearly 11,000 vets who'd been treated at those facilities back in the spring of 2009.
The trial for Mr. Metzler's suit is expected to last about a week, reports the Miami Herald.
Irene Tsikitas
