Baltimore Sun (09/04/12) Andrea K. Walker

Columbia, MD-based Maxim Staffing Solutions Inc. faces a lawsuit from a patient who allegedly contracted hepatitis C from David Kwiatkowski, a traveling medical technician accused of injecting himself with stolen narcotics and leaving contaminated needles behind for use in patients. The lawsuit claims that although Maxim fired Kwiatkowski when he was discovered stealing narcotics by a co-worker, it failed to report him to legal authorities, enabling him to travel to other hospitals around the U.S. for another four years and putting thousands of patients at risk. Additionally, Omaha, NE-based staffing firm Medical Solutions LLC is accused in the lawsuit of failing to perform the appropriate background checks on Kwiatkowski. Greg Dolin, co-director of the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center for Medicine and Law, says that unless it can be proven that hospitals knew the worker was negligent, contract workers generally are the responsibility of the staffing firm.