Business as usual in clinic crisis
To the editor:
I woke up Friday morning knowing that I would have to take time out to get tested, thanks to the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada. While drinking my usual coffee and reading the newspaper, boy, was I not surprised to learn a few things.
First, the center will not be closed. Second, licenses will not be suspended. Third, I will pay for the testing. Fourth, the good doctor in charge of the center is a good political donor. Business as usual.
Because the so-called powers that be are busy wringing their hands, explaining that there is not much that they will do, I have possible answers. Number one, most important, is for the clinic's patients to get tested. Second is to file a claim in small claims court for the costs of said tests -- to have 40,000 claims put into the already overburdened court system would surely blow a circuit. The cost to the center to respond to a large amount of claims in itself would be huge -- probably more than the cost of the tests themselves.
A message must be sent to bureaucrats and others that unethical and dangerous behavior by health care professionals will not be tolerated. It will take more than a slap on the wrist to finish this.
At least Dr. Dipak Desai, who has 65 percent ownership of the center, used the money he saved by using dirty syringes to help pay for his 8,500-square-foot home. I thought it might have been wasted on something foolish.
Darrell Welch
NORTH LAS VEGAS
Gross recklessness
To the editor:
The despicable Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada should be put out of business immediately. I was shocked and appalled as I learned of the unforgivable danger that its employees knowingly and recklessly subjected their patients to.
The culpable persons are nothing short of villains and should be treated as such. I wonder if they got their treatment protocols from a trash can outside the Lied Animal Shelter.
They can stay in business as long as they can hemorrhage cash.
I'd rather die from my own disease than go there and die from someone else's. I'll never associate with you, and I encourage others to avoid you, too.
P.S.: Your malpractice carrier called -- he hopes you used those syringes on yourselves.
Russell A. Wood
LAS VEGAS
Should have left town
To the editor:
We constantly read that our citizens go out of state for medical treatment. I certainly wish I had gone somewhere else for the test I had at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada in 2005.
This is greed, pure and simple, overtaking safety concerns and proper medical treatment for patients -- over probably 50 cents per syringe!
Jim Horsley
HENDERSON
Start being parents
To the editor:
The Review-Journal's John L. Smith nailed it in his Wednesday column about recent school shootings when he wrote: "Every year police officers and schoolteachers are asked to do more because parents, and society generally, do less and less."
The real litmus test begins at home, then with the understaffed and overwhelmed schools. It used to be that schools reinforced the values and standards of parents and the community's societal norms. Not any more. Now, parents expect the schools to create those values and standards because Mommy and Daddy have better, more important things to do, like work, or golf or gamble.
Too many kids enter the school system with no concept of right or wrong, no guilt, no conscience. Then parents blame schools when things go seriously wrong. It's easier that way in this time of "not my fault" attitudes. Then our besieged police are asked to sweep up the mess.
Police, in my mind, have one job: enforce the laws. They shouldn't have to deal with feel-good programs that cater to punks and criminals. What I would have loved to hear Undersheriff Rod Jett say at his Tuesday news conference is: "Parents, these are your kids. Start being parents!"
Jan Ashman
LAS VEGAS
Hunt must go
To the editor:
I was disgusted when I heard Clark County Democratic Party Chairman John Hunt's interviews on TV and radio on Feb. 25. He had the nerve to blame the Clinton and Obama campaigns for his failure of a convention on Saturday, Feb. 23 at Bally's.
Had Mr. Hunt exercised one of the values of the Democratic Party -- inclusion -- he would have known that many people in the party and within these two campaigns wanted to attend the convention. At least now he realizes that the campaigns should and need to be involved in planning the second convention.
But he still doesn't get it. Your Feb. 26 article indicates that Mr. Hunt is seriously thinking about trying again on Saturday, March 22. Yes, that date falls within the time frame that he needs to meet, but has he looked at the calendar? That is the Saturday before Easter. We should not be conducting political business that day.
We suspended the Feb. 23 convention because delegates were disenfranchised. How many more people will be disenfranchised because the convention is held during Easter weekend and Spring Break?
It is time for Mr. Hunt to apologize to Clark County Democrats -- and step aside.
DONNA WEST
LAS VEGAS
