The Oregonian | By Aimee Green | January 10, 2025
A Portland-area woman who claims the anesthesiologist in her 2021 hand surgery infected her with the potentially life-threatening Hepatitis C virus filed a $4 million lawsuit against Providence Health & Services and the Oregon Anesthesiology Group on Wednesday.
The woman, listed in her lawsuit only by the letters K.S., is one of more than 2,400 patients who were sent letters by Providence and Legacy Health last summer notifying them that they might have been exposed to HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C or other infections due to violations in safety protocols from 2017 to June 2024. The suit claims the woman was infected due to lapses in following infection control procedures.
Providence, Legacy and the Oregon Anesthesiology Group didn’t respond to queries Thursday or declined to comment about whether more patients with confirmed infections had been identified. Because the woman underwent surgery at Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City, only Providence and Oregon Anesthesiology Group are listed as defendants in the lawsuit. Providence declined to comment on the lawsuit, and the anesthesiology group didn’t respond.
The woman told The Oregonian/OregonLive that upon receiving a letter from Providence sent last July, she was in disbelief that she might have been exposed.
“I was kind of shocked,” she said. “I thought it was a fake letter.”
But then she saw that she’d also received a second letter. So she decided to get tested, and she learned she’d contracted Hepatitis C. She said that other than the surgery, she’d engaged in no behaviors that might have exposed her to the virus that is primarily spread through contact with infected blood. An infectious disease expert hired by her lawyer said that in all probability, she acquired the virus through her 2021 surgery.
“I go in there and lay on a gurney, and someone comes and knocks you out,” the woman said. “I mean, I never thought anything would happen.”
She said she started an eight-week course of antiviral pills several days ago that will aim to cure her. She said Providence told her it would pay for the medication, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. She said she has been on the hook for a few $5 co-pays.
She also is frustrated with months-long delays she said she has experienced in getting the treatment that Providence promised her, and she worries about permanent damage to her liver.
The treatment, which has a 95% success rate, is considered a major innovation in modern-day medicine and wasn’t available as recently as 15 years ago. Hepatitis C, however, is still the leading cause of liver cancer in the U.S. because many people don’t know they have it or can’t afford the treatment.
The woman said she has been left in the dark about what hospital officials believe happened and how it is that multiple other medical staff could be working around the anesthesiologist suspected of being responsible and not notice his alleged lapses over a years-long span.
The woman’s attorney, Michael Fuller, said he hasn’t learned any answers from Providence.
“They’re being very vague,” Fuller said.
Weeks after the two hospital systems announced they would send out thousands of letters notifying patients, six patients filed a federal lawsuit last summer seeking class action status for the stress and anguish of waiting to learn their test results. None were identified in the lawsuit as having acquired an infection.
The suit was dismissed in December. Court records don’t explain why, such as if the case reached a settlement, and the plaintiff’s attorneys couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.
Neither last summer’s lawsuit nor this week’s lawsuit names the anesthesiologist suspected to be responsible.
Fuller said medical records state that the anesthesiologist who sedated his client was Stephen Carl Swank. Oregon Medical Board records show Swank had up to a decade of experience in anesthesiology by June 25, 2024, which is when he signed an agreement to “voluntarily withdraw from practice” pending the outcome of a medical board investigation “into his ability to safely and competently practice medicine.”
The medical board lists the investigation as still open.
The agreement gives no other information about why Swank is under investigation.
Swank didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Oregonian/OregonLive last year or Thursday.
According to announcements made by Providence and Legacy last year, patients were potentially exposed to infections at three Portland area hospitals. The hospital systems say that included about 2,200 patients at Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City, two patients at Providence Portland Medical Center in Northeast Portland and 221 patients at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center in Gresham.
