DALLAS — A Dallas anesthesiologist was convicted Friday for injecting a nerve-blocking agent and other drugs into luggage of intravenous fluid at a surgical center in which he worked, which led to the loss of life of a coworker and brought on cardiac emergencies for several patients, federal prosecutors explained.
A jury convicted Raynaldo Rivera Ortiz Jr., 60, of four counts of tampering with purchaser items resulting in significant bodily harm, a single count of tampering with a client products and five counts of intentional adulteration of a drug, prosecutors claimed. A sentencing date has not yet been set for Ortiz, who faces up to 190 a long time in jail.
“Dr. Ortiz cloaked himself in the white coat of a healer, but alternatively of curing pain, he inflicted it,” U.S. Lawyer for the Northern District of Texas, Leigha Simonton, mentioned in a movie assertion.
Prosecutors explained evidence introduced at demo confirmed that a lot of people at Surgicare North Dallas experienced cardiac emergencies all through routine health-related processes executed by many health professionals amongst May possibly 2022 and August 2022. For the duration of that time, an anesthesiologist who experienced labored at the facility earlier that day died while dealing with herself for dehydration employing an IV bag.
Prosecutors reported Ortiz, who was arrested in September 2022, had surreptitiously placed the tainted IV bags into a warming bin at the facility and waited for them to be applied in his colleagues’ surgeries.
Evidence presented at trial showed that at the time of the emergencies, Ortiz was struggling with disciplinary motion for an alleged medical miscalculation built in one of his have surgical procedures, prosecutors said.
