A Spanish anaesthetist is believed to have infected more than 200 patients with the hepatitis C virus. Earlier this month the Valencian health department announced that at least 217 people have become infected with hepatitis C after undergoing surgery within the past year at two hospitals in Valencia. The health department named the primary source of the infection as Dr Juan Maeso, an anaesthetist in his early 40s who has worked in the La Fe Hospital and the private centre Casa de Salud for the past five years.
Dr Maeso, an intravenous morphine addict for many years, has the same hepatitis C virus genome as the infected patients. In the immediate postoperative period it is suspected that Dr Maeso administered part of the contents of syringes containing opioid analgesic to himself before giving the rest to his patients using the same syringe.
Dr Maeso seems to have carried out this procedure repeatedly over a long period of time and with many patients. Dr Maeso, whose addiction was known about by some staff at the La Fe Hospital, had been forced to retire from a post as anaesthetist in another Valencian hospital after falsifying signatures to obtain opioids.
The head of the Valencian health department said that more than 2000 people have been anaesthetised by Dr Maeso during the past three years. Dr Maeso is believed to have become infected with hepatitis C in 1995. These patients are being traced and will be tested for hepatitis C. Once the health department has completed its investigation, expected to take three months, legal action will be considered against Dr Maeso. In the meantime, Dr Maeso has been suspended from work without pay. The Spanish patients' association has called for his immediate unconditional imprisonment.