Federal health officials believe that a former surgery tech might have exposed several thousand Colorado patients to hepatitis C when she traded in her dirty needles Thursday for ones containing a powerful drug. Kristen Diane Parker, who was employed at the Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center in Colorado Springs and Rose Medical Center in Denver, could be prosecuted for changing out syringes with ones filled with the painkiller Fentanyl, an act authorities say she admits performing. So far, at least nine surgery patients at Rose have tested positive for the incurable hepatitis C, and some 6,000 more are being warned that they might have been exposed to the blood-borne disease and need to be tested, according to an affidavit by Mary F. LaFrance, an investigator for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Symptoms can include nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, pain and jaundice.

TAGS: Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center, hepititis C, Kristen Diane Parker, Tentanyl

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