Exeter Hospital patients express outrage over Hepatitis C outbreak

New Hampshire health officials met with the public on Friday night after twenty patients treated at a lab in Exeter Hospital have been diagnosed with Hepatitis C.

Terry Murphy was treated in the procedure lab the outbreak may have originated from. He tells FOX 25's Tyisha Fernandes that as far as he's concerned, Exeter Hospital has given him a death sentence.

Murphy was recently tested for Hepatitis C at the hospital. He then received a call saying the hospital allowed the blood sample to expire and that he has to come in and draw blood again.

"I'd like some competent people to come in and do a thorough investigation," says Murphy.

State health officials are trying to figure out how many people are infected and how this happened in the Cardiac Catheterization Lab in the first place.

One health official tells FOX 25 that a drug diversion is probably a cause of the outbreak. Someone infected with Hepatitis C used a syringe and vile to inject themselves with pain medication, and then put the infected syringe back into a place where others used it. However, this explanation is still just a theory.

"If they're focusing on just one theory this late in the game and now we're six weeks into it, they may have destroyed the evidence from the real cause," says cardiac surgeon and attorney Domeic Paolini.

Attorney Alfred Catalfo represents seven of the infected victims who didn't want to show their faces at Friday night's meeting.

Catalfo says he doesn't think Exeter Hospital should have anything to do with this investigation.

 "When they start losing blood samples or expiring them that's where the state should say, sorry, nothing we can do, and turn it over to the CDC," says Catalfo.

Cox Media Group