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Doctor tied to hepatitis cases settles lawsuit

BY MICHAEL AMON | michael.amon@newsday.com

April 30, 2008

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Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, the Dix Hills physician who the state Department of Health says put thousands of patients at risk by reusing syringes, has settled a medical malpractice lawsuit with a Syosset man who claimed he got hepatitis C in the doctor's office.

The financial settlement marks the first resolution of several lawsuits filed after a Department of Health investigation found that Peter Mattmuller, 66, had been infected in Finkelstein's office. The lawsuit contended that the infection occurred because Finkelstein used a syringe multiple times on the patient seen before Mattmuller, contaminating multidose medicine vials that were then the source of injections for Mattmuller.

Finkelstein's flawed infection-control techniques prompted authorities last November to notify more than 10,000 patients of their risk for disease.

The terms of the April 10 settlement are confidential, said Mattmuller's attorney, Michael Glass of Hauppauge.

"We resolved the case to everybody's mutual satisfaction," Glass said.

Finkelstein, who did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement and continues to practice, now has settled 11 malpractice lawsuits in the past eight years, the Department of Health said. Fewer than 200 of the state's 80,000 doctors have settled that many cases, according to Washington-based consumer group Public Citizen.

Mattmuller was being treated by Finkelstein for a degenerative disc disease in his back when he was diagnosed in December 2004 with hepatitis C, a blood-borne disease that can cause severe liver damage.

The state and Nassau Department of Health began a probe the same month when investigators learned that two other Finkelstein patients also were diagnosed with hepatitis C. One of them, Raymond Bookstaver, 49, of Hicksville, had received injections of the same medications during the appointment immediately preceding Mattmuller's on July 15, 2004, according to Health Department and medical records.

County and state investigators observed Finkelstein in his office in January 2005 and reported that, while drawing medicine from multidose vials, he reused syringes on three patients, records show.

Finkelstein's attorney, Michael Kelly of Hauppauge, did not return a phone call for comment. In letters to the Health Department in 2006, Finkelstein's attorneys denied that the doctor reused syringes and said investigators made a mistake.

Genetic tests performed by the state Health Department linked the disease strains of Mattmuller and Bookstaver, records show.

Bookstaver also is suing for malpractice, claiming he got hepatitis C in Finkelstein's office. A patient with chronic hepatitis C received the same injections as Bookstaver and Mattmuller during an appointment just before theirs on July 15, 2004, records show.

Susan Lewis, of North Massapequa, is suing Finkelstein, claiming he gave her hepatitis C. She is also suing the state and county health departments for taking nearly three years to notify her of the doctor's reuse of syringes.