State Health Department inspectors found blood on chairs and machines at a Manhattan dialysis center and had it closed down immediately. The state Health Commissioner says the center has surrendered its operating certificate and paid a civil penalty of $300,000.

An investigation by the state Department of Health found that at least one patient contracted Hepatitis C after undergoing dialysis at the Life Care Dialysis Center on the Upper West Side. Officials have warned more than 650 other patients about possible exposure to both hepatitis B and C strains, as well as HIV. They have also added that anyone treated at the center at any time after Jan. 23, 2004 should contact their physicians and get tested. The clinic, which had 171 patients at the time of the inspection, agreed to pay for the testing, even if it is done by private doctors, officials said.

Hepatitis C is a chronic disease contracted through contact with blood of an infected person. Hepatitis B can be contracted through sexual intercourse or contact with blood.

Nearly 200 patients were forced to be transferred to other centers to continue dialysis, a treatment that filters a patient’s blood through a machine when the kidneys can no longer function properly.

Life Care Dialysis Center on West 61st Street had employees who failed to wash their hands, disinfect equipment or change gloves between patients, Health Department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton explained. “It was repulsive,” Ms. Hutton said. “The treatment chairs that they gave people to relax in had someone else’s dried blood on them.”

Dr. Walter Wasser, the clinic’s operator and medical director, is likely to loose his medical license.