Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz, who faces up to life in prison if convicted, says surveillance video evidence of him at an IV warmer is misleading.

The Dallas anesthesiologist accused of poisoning patients called WFAA from the Limestone County Detention Center.

“All that stuff that they said was a lie,” Ortiz said. “I’ve had no lawsuits, no malpractice in 29 years, not one.”

In a more than 30minute telephone interview, Ortiz said he’d been set up, that he’d done nothing wrong and cast aspersions on the people he once worked with. He said his troubles began after he reported another medical professional for alleged sexual misconduct.

Ortiz spoke one day before he was due to appear in a Dallas federal court to be arraigned on 10 felony counts related to allegations that he tampered with IV bags. He’s pleaded not guilty to the charges.

According to a criminal complaint, for three months from May to August of this year 11 people who came for routine outpatient surgeries suffered cardiac episodes on the operating tables at Baylor, Scott and White’s Surgicare North Dallas facility on Coit Road. The episodes typically occurred during longer surgeries when hospital staff retrieved additional IV bags from a warmer, the complaint said.

While Ortiz wasn’t the anesthesiologist in any of those routine surgeries, prosecutors allege he tampered with IV bags.

According to the criminal complaint, the cardiac episodes began in late May, days after Surgicare North Dallas officials notified Ortiz he was being investigated for the circumstances surrounding a May 19 surgery. The complaint said a facility review found “Ortiz deviated from the standard of care by failing to maintain the patient’s airway and failing to document critical aspects of the incident.”

“He expressed to a fellow doctor that (Surgicare North Dallas) was trying to ‘crucify’ him,” the criminal complaint said.

FULL STORY: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/loc...