Three more hospitals that employed Rocky Allen face patient lawsuits

Three more hospitals that employed former surgical technologist Rocky Allen face lawsuits alleging they failed to protect patients from a fentanyl addict with a blood disease.
In Arizona, lawyer James Avery filed suit Friday against two hospitals that employed Allen in 2014 — Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale and HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center in Phoenix.
He also notified the state of Washington last week of an intent to sue Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle on behalf of surgery patients during Allen's employment there.
Karen Peck, a Northwest Hospital spokeswoman, denied that the hospital acted negligently in hiring Allen.
"We did a Washington state criminal background check," she said. "We confirmed his registration as a surgical tech. We also conducted a personal reference check."
His Navy references checked out, she said, and nobody mentioned that he had been court-martialed for stealing fentanyl at an Army base overseas.
The Arizona hospitals did not respond to requests for comment.

Allen, 28, has been charged in Colorado with stealing fentanyl from Swedish Medical Center in Englewood and replacing it with a syringe containing none of the powerful narcotic painkiller. He carries a bloodborne pathogen, according to a federal court disclosure that did not name the disease.
Altogether, about 5,000 patients in Colorado, Arizona, Washington and California have been offered free blood tests for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
To date, no hospital has confirmed that Allen infected anyone. He has pleaded not guilty to felony charges in Colorado.
Avery also sued Swedish on behalf of 36 of about 2,900 patients offered blood tests.
In Arizona, the case "involves an indescribable nightmare imposed on a vulnerable group of people — hospital patients undergoing surgery," he wrote.
He accused the hospitals of hiring Allen "without adequately conducting a background check, without adequately supervising him and without putting in place adequate safeguards to protect the patients entrusted to their care."
Allen was employed by and fired by both Arizona hospitals between May and September 2014, three years after he was court-martialed for fentanyl theft while deployed in Afghanistan, the lawsuit says.
It names six plaintiffs — four patients and two spouses — as subjected to emotional distress and a risk of infection.