Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn., has settled a class action lawsuit nine years after they warned patients they could have a blood-borne disease as a result of hospital employees who reused insulin injection pens, CTPost reported Sept. 22.
In May 2014, hospital CEO Patrick Charmel sent a letter to 3,149 former patients stating the hospital "identified the possibility that insulin pens ordered for patients hospitalized between Sept. 1, 2008, and May 7, 2014, may have been misused.”
Hospital officials identified five nurses linked to the misuse who were "re-educated."
The lawsuit, filed by former patients in 2016, alleged nurses reused multidose insulin injection pens on multiple patients between 2008 and 2014. The injector pens are meant to provide multiple doses of insulin to a single patient. Using the same pen on multiple patients potentially exposed thousands of patients to blood-borne pathogens, the lawsuit alleged. The disposable needles inside the pens were not reused.
The hospital offered free blood-borne pathogen tests, and more than 1,000 plaintiffs returned to the hospital for the tests and received negative results.
The hospital settled the class action lawsuit and agreed to pay $1 million to members of the class action.
"Plaintiffs do not claim that they contracted any blood-borne pathogens as a result of the misuse of insulin pens by Griffin Hospital staff nor has there been any evidence produced in this matter that the alleged misuse of the insulin pens by Griffin Hospital staff led to any disease transmissions to the class plaintiffs," the settlement document states.