NV hospital hired clinics accused of lax practices

An area medical center is coming under fire to defend a $1 million contract with a group of clinics now under investigation for potentially widespread infection control failures. The contract has been canceled since the scandal broke, however, University Medical Centers executives, who signed the deal last year with Dr. Dipak Desai, remain under fire because of that deal. Among Desai's clinics are the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, where six patients contracted Hepatitis C and another 40,000 patients seem to be at risk. Not only are the unsafe conditions under question, hospital officials are wondering why Desai's group got $1 million to direct the hospital's gastroenterology department, more than four times the $210,000 they got for the same work in 2006. Hospital officials said that they gave Desai the raise, less, actually than the $1.85 million he'd demanded, given that they had only two appropriate candidates. Now, despite shelling out big bucks, the hospital is back where it started, struggling to fill the hole in its program.

To learn more about the deal:
- read this Las Vegas Sun piece

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Las Vegas clinic may have infected 40,000 patients. Report