A traveling hospital worker accused of stealing drugs and infecting patients with hepatitis C through contaminated syringes has pleaded not guilty to the charges in New Hampshire federal court.
David Kwiatkowski
AP Photo/U.S. Attorney's Office
Kwiatkowski only said "yes" when asked in court Monday if he understood his rights. Trial was set for the first week of February.
Until May, Kwiatkowski worked as a cardiac technologist at Exeter Hospital, where 32 patients were diagnosed with the same strain of hepatitis C he carries. Before that, he worked in 18 hospitals in seven states. Patients in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania have since been tested for hepatitis C.
Kwiatkowski worked brief stints at four Michigan hospitals between 2005 and 2007, including a position as an interventional radiologic technologist at the University of Michigan Health System in August 2006.
While working in U-M’s Department of Radiology, Kwiatkowski was under investigation for the theft of a vial of fentanyl, a powerful narcotic used to treat pain in cancer patients. He resigned in the midst of the investigation, and shortly later began a job at Oakwood Annapolis Hospital in Wayne.
Fentanyl is the same drug investigators believe Kwiatkowski stole syringes of from Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire, injected himself with them and then put another liquid, like saline, in the syringes that were later used on patients. Kwiatkowski has hepatitis C.