A top U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) official has acknowledged the "failure of leadership" that took place at the Dayton VA Medical Center's dental clinic in Ohio, where a dentist's lack of adherence to basic infection-control practices put hundreds of veterans at risk for nearly 20 years, the Daytona Daily News has reported.
Testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs on May 3, Robert Petzel, MD, under secretary for health at the VA, took the Dayton center's leaders to task for not recognizing a problem that should have been "clear to many," the article stated. But the brunt of the blame was placed upon those at the top.
"I want to be perfectly clear: That was a failure of leadership within the dental clinic," Petzel said.
Petzel's statements mirrored the conclusions of a report issued last week by the VA's inspector general's office. Among other things, the inspector general's office confirmed that staffing levels in the dental clinic were suboptimal, which may have increased the likelihood that deviations from approved infection control practices would occur, and that interpersonal relations among dental clinic staff were, at times, "strained and negatively impacted the dental clinic."
According to the VA, 535 veterans may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV by Dwight Pemberton, DDS, a dentist in the VA clinic, between 1992 and 2010. Of these, 507 have been tested; two patients tested positive for new cases of hepatitis B, one patient tested positive for hepatitis C, and no new cases of HIV have been identified, according to the VA.
