A local medical office that was shut down due to unsafe injection practices may reopen after changes have been made, according to a statement from the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department.
The office of Dr. Allen Thomashefsky, located at 2320 Bath St., #301 in Santa Barbara, was shut down by the county on March 19, after the discovery that a former patient may have acquired Hepatitis C from an injection received there.
Further investigation found that five patients who visited the office on the same day contracted new cases of the Hepatitis C. Seven patients were identified as testing positive for the disease.
County health has been working to reach out to hundreds of former patients that may have been affected to urge them to be tested for blood-borne diseases.
On Tuesday, the county said County Health Officer Dr. Charity Dean had rescinded the order that closed the office, and that the action “follows a number of measures that have been implemented to assure infection control practices are maintained at the medical office.”
Since the closure, “a number of key actions have been taken by Dr. Thomashefsky, including adopting a detailed and extensive Infection Control Manual, hiring a consultant who will be monitoring infection control practices on an ongoing basis, and local monitoring by Public Health officials,” the statement said.
Thomashefsky also has a practice in Ashland, Oregon that has remained open but has been prohibited since April from ordering or administering any injections that aren’t immunizations recommended by the CDC and cannot retrieve or process any blood or tissue samples unless it is sent to a certified laboratory.
Public Health officials in Oregon are also notifying Thomashefsky’s patients that they should be tested for blood-borne diseases.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
