A Northumberland County dentist's license has been suspended after a joint investigation by Pennsylvania's departments of health and state revealed egregious lapses in infection-control procedures.
A June 13 complaint, filed by David Green, prosecuting attorney for Pennsylvania's Department of State, explained that because of "serious errors in disinfection, including instruments sitting in a shallow basin above the fluid level of the supposed disinfectant," the continued practice of dentistry by Vincent J. Paczkoskie, DDS, is "a clear danger to the public health and safety."
The document explained that Dr. Paczkoskie did not adhere to dental standard-of-care practices and failed to follow the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) infection-control recommendations. Specifically, the investigators found no evidence that Dr. Paczkoskie's practice had sent out samples of instruments that had been autoclaved for biological spore testing since June 2013. He also had only one handpiece onsite and could not answer basic questions about the autoclave, including "time and temperature setting, last date of service, last date of use, [and] which specific instruments had been recently autoclaved," the document noted.
Other issues included a lack of proper instrument scrubbing before disinfection and insufficient time allowed for cold sterilization before reusing an instrument. He also did not properly dispose of medical waste and investigators found no active contract in place for the removal of it from his office. Used needles were poorly disposed of as well.
Currently, there are no known cases of disease transmission.
"As a precautionary measure, the department is recommending that any patient who had a cleaning or procedure at Dr. Paczkoskie's office get tested for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C," Wes Culp, deputy press secretary at the Department of Health, wrote in an email to DrBicuspid.com. The department is urging patients to call its toll-free hotline, 877-PA-HEALTH, to ask any questions and to be connected to testing facilities.
"We have received approximately 200 calls," Culp said.
The practice's poor record keeping has made it difficult to ascertain how many people may have been exposed and how long the infection-control lapses have been taking place, a report by WNEP noted.
There are no previous complaints filed with the Department of Health against Dr. Paczkoskie, according to Culp.
