The medical practices at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada may have put 40,000 patients at risk for several viruses.

Legislators at a public hearing Thursday wanted to know why the state licensing bureau allowed the centers to stay open.

Officials want to find out who knew what, and when.

They are trying to determine when people knew about the reuse of syringes and drugs vials.

Lisa Jones with the State Bureau of Licensure and Certification said,  "I think we heard a strong message from our legislators today. They would have liked to have seen more action. We have always gone forward on the language that is in the statute that dictates that we take action based on the facility's response and correction and that administrative sanctions are in place."

Jones says that is to preserve the public's access to medical services.

Contact 13 Chief Investigator Darcy Spears has also been looking into why the state does not seem to be prepared to protect the public in this type of crisis.

The state health division's licensing bureau could have shut the facilities in question down, but did not.

They could have inspected them more frequently, but did not do that either.

That is due to lax state law and not enough money or manpower to properly protect the public.

The last time the Endoscopy Center on Shadow Lane was inspected was in June 2007.

State law does not lay out how often inspections of these types of facilities must happen, so the licensing bureau says their policy is every three years.

But they failed to even do that in this case.

The last full inspection at the Endoscopy Center was done 7 years ago in 2001.

Lisa Jones with the State Bureau of Licensure and Certification said,"We would like to be in facilities much more frequently. We think that that offers a wake up call, an educational opportunity, but people need to remember it is a snapshot in time and nothing is a guarantee."

Jones said they have not been able to put their inspection policy into practice because they do not have enough people.

Last year, the bureau asked the legislature for 17 new positions.

"In that time period of containment no new taxes and all we did go through with authorization for 7 additional positions," explained Jones.

The state says they have got a total of 13 open inspector positions right now, but they have only been able to fill 5, and those 5 are not on the job yet.

Jones says that is because they have so much trouble recruiting qualified nurses to fill those positions.

"We are a state agency with a state pay scale and we are competing with the healthcare industry and people are able to find much more lucrative positions that would pay them there so that seems to be our biggest challenge at the moment," said Jones.

Stay tuned to Action News for further details on the inspections at the Endoscopy Centers of Southern Nevada.