The doctor who was arrested in connection with contaminated IV bags linked to a death at a North Dallas surgery center has a disciplinary record with the Texas Medical Board, a criminal history for assault and animal cruelty and the IRS said he owed more than $4 million in unpaid taxes, according to public records.
Anesthesiologist Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz arrested by Dallas police Wednesday and faces federal charges that remained sealed on Wednesday.
The contaminated IV bags were discovered at Baylor Scott & White Surgicare on Coit Road, according to the Texas Medical Board, and contributed to cardiac arrests involving patients and the death of a colleague.
According to the Texas Medical Board, Ortiz is under investigation after he was seen on surveillance video putting IV bags in a water heater outside operating theaters just before patients suffered unexpected medical problems during routine surgeries.
The tests showed tiny holes in the IV bags and detected the presence of bupivacaine, a drug usually used to treat localized pain, according to the medical advice.
Dallas police referred questions to federal prosecutors who declined to comment.
NBC 5 was unable to reach Ortiz and it is unclear if he has an attorney representing him.
Dallas County Sheriff’s Department
HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL COMMISSION
On Aug. 19, Dr. Ortiz agreed to have his practice monitored by another physician after an incident with a patient in November 2020, Texas Medical Board records show.
“The board has concluded that Dr. Ortiz failed to meet the standard of care for a patient during a procedure and was disciplined as a result of the incident,” the board said.
In addition to being watched by another doctor, Ortiz was fined $3,000 and ordered to undergo eight hours of training in medical record keeping and eight hours in resuscitation and intubation techniques.
According to the board’s complaint, in November 2020, Ortiz’s patient required CPR and “urgent transport” during a procedure at North Garland Surgery Center.
The incident resulted in an “unfavourable recommendation” after an internal review and Ortiz was forced to relinquish “all clinical privileges”, the board said.
According to the board, Ortiz failed to acknowledge the patient’s “inadequate oxygenation and ventilation,” failed to respond “appropriately” when the patient required CPR, and failed to document the “critical events.” ” in the medical records.
Ortiz neither admitted nor denied the charges against him, but agreed to comply with the order.
The hospital’s investigation “was never completed and no definitive conclusions were reached because (Ortiz) waived his privileges prior to any hearing,” the board said in its order.
In a previous issue, the council publicly reprimanded Ortiz in October 2018, fined him $2,000 and suspended his clinical privileges for 14 days for failing to report that he had been convicted of animal cruelty.
In July 2016, the medical executive committee of Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-Garland suspended Ortiz for 14 days for failing to report the same conviction, the board noted.
Ortiz has been a licensed physician in Texas since February 1991, the board said.
He graduated from the medical branch of the University of Texas at Galveston in 1989 and completed his residency there, according to medical records.
SENTENCED FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY
In a bizarre case, Ortiz was arrested in Murphy in 2015 and charged with shooting his neighbor’s dog with a pellet gun after the neighbor helped Ortiz’s girlfriend move house and later testified against him during a court hearing.
Ortiz was charged with animal cruelty.
The dog survived.
He pleaded not guilty but was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 25 days in jail.
The judge also ordered him to take anger management classes and pay $505 in restitution for the injured dog’s vet bill.
Ortiz appealed his misdemeanor conviction, saying there was not enough evidence, he had no opportunity to object to the proposed jury instructions, the judge erred responding to a message from the jury and that the prosecutor who had omitted several words in a jury indictment during the arraignment.
The doctor lost on every argument.
The appeals court reviewed the trial transcripts and, in its decision upholding Ortiz’s conviction, offered the following detailed account of the case.
The neighbor testified that around 2:30 p.m. on April 29, 2015, she heard a gunshot while in her room and heard her dog scream.
She ran into her garden and saw “her dog’s chest covered in blood,” she told the jury.
Just before she heard the shot, she said she heard Ortiz come into her driveway.
She knew it was him, she testified, because he had a “very loud sports car” and “it’s a very loud distinctive roar when he comes home”.
She immediately thought Ortiz had shot the animal. He was shooting rabbits “a lot” and they were running into his yard injured, she said.
Collin County jail records show Ortiz was arrested Dec. 30, 2014, for domestic violence-contact assault and released the next day. Court records show that no charges were filed.
When police questioned him about shooting the dog, Ortiz denied committing the crime and said he had no guns because his girlfriend took them all when they got together. are separated.
Ortiz stopped cooperating with police about a week later after showing up for a scheduled meeting with a detective at the police station. But when the detective arrived in the lobby to greet him three or four minutes later, he was gone, the appeals court ruled.
PREVIOUS CRIMINAL RECORD
Ortiz’s criminal record dates back to 1995, just two years after he completed his residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
The Texas Medical Board was fully aware of Ortiz’s case and documented it in a 2018 case against him.
In June 1995, Ortiz was arrested for assault causing bodily harm to a spouse, who later divorced him.
In September 2005, another woman applied for an emergency protection order alleging he assaulted her.
In December 2014, Ortiz was arrested for domestic violence assault involving a third woman.
In January 2015, the third woman filed for an emergency protective order and settled with Ortiz for an “undisclosed sum of money,” according to the medical board’s review of her criminal cases.
In an affidavit, the mother of Ortiz’s son said Ortiz had been “abusive” for years.
“He’s threatened to kill me before, even told me how he would do it, including cutting off my finger to get the ring,” the woman said. “He said the only thing stopping him from killing me was that he would go to jail.”
Ortiz denied the allegations and denied that he and the woman were ever married.
Ortiz claimed the woman ‘trashed’ her house before leaving and took cash, gold, jewelry and 40 bottles of wine.
A judge granted a temporary protective order to keep the doctor away from her and their son, but both parents were later granted visitation rights.
IRS PRIVILEGES ON THE HOUSE OF ORTIZ
The IRS placed numerous liens on Ortiz’s Murphy home.
The first, in 2015, claimed he owed $1.65 million in unpaid taxes from 2011 to 2013.
In 2020, the tax agency said its total debt was $4.1 million since 2015.
Scott Gordon – NBC 5
Further tax liens in 2021 and 2022 showed he owed an additional $265,774 and $304,517, respectively.
His 7,718 square foot home was appraised at $1.3 million, according to the Collin County Appraisal District.
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