A class action lawsuit has been launched against an Ottawa doctor whose endoscopic clinic is at the centre of an infection scare.
The lawsuit was announced Thursday, the day after CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr discovered that the doctor named in the suit, Dr. Christiane Farazli, 61, is once again seeing patients.
The Merchant Law Group LLP filed the lawsuit on Thursday. It claims that Farazli failed to consistently follow standard practices and procedures to sterilize the clinic's endoscopes. It also alleges that patients have suffered "worry, anxiety, and possible bodily injuries."
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Two of Farazli's former patients are the lead plaintiffs in the class action. They are seeking $20 million for the 6,800 or so patients affected.
Last month, public health officials announced that close to 7,000 of Farazli's patients over a 10-year period may have been put at risk of contracting HIV or hepatitis B or C. That came after and investigation by Ontario's College of Physicians and Surgeons found that Farazli had not always followed proper instrument sterilization protocols.
Health officials have said there is a very low risk that any of Farazli's patients over the last 10 years were ever exposed to viruses during procedures at the clinic.
But at least one of Farazli's patients did have hepatitis C before she visited the clinic.
Liette Vachon told Schnurr that she is worried she may have inadvertently infected others after she underwent a colonoscopy at the clinic.
Vachon contracted hepatitis C years ago, when she was a teenage runaway. She says it's a lifelong infection she wouldn't wish on anyone.
Vachon says when she had the colonoscopy at Dr. Farazli's office nine years ago, she made sure the doctor knew she had hepatitis C. She remembers that in the room where she had the procedure, there was a container with dirty brown water in it.
"If she didn't clean it between the last patient and me, what are the chances that she did between me and the next?" Vachon wonders.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr
