Nurse Arrested for Stealing Morphine from Hospice Patients

A Registered Nurse was arrested for reportedly stealing morphine from a hospice patient and replacing it with cranberry juice.

According to the affidavit, on March 13, the Whitney Police Department was first called out to home because a the nurse had overdosed on morphine. Whitney PD then used Narcan on the nurse to reverse the effects.

The nurse told police she got the morphine from her job as a registered nurse at Clifton Lutheran Sunset Ministries (CLSM), according to the affidavit. Whitney Police then contacted the Clifton Police Department the next day for assistance in the investigation.

On March 29, the facility’s administrator, Lance Allen, called Clifton PD after he learned a former employee stole morphine from a patient and replaced it with cranberry juice, according to the affidavit. Allen identified that former employee as the nurse, who was fired from her job after they learned of what she did, the affidavit states.

One witness told police that she was good friends with the nurse when she was working at the facility. She said during lunch, the nurse confessed to her that she was fired from a previous job because she stole medicine from a patient, according to the affidavit. The nurse reportedly told the witness she had done the same thing while working for CLSM.

The witness continued to tell police that on March 11, The nurse intercepted a morphine prescription intended for a patient at the home, the affidavit states. She did so by offering to take the morphine to another wing, the affidavit continues.

The witness said the nurse told her instead of taking the medication to the correct wing, she took them into her office and left them there while she went to the cafeteria and got cranberry juice, the affidavit continues.

The nurse then took the cranberry juice to her office, emptied out the morphine from the syringes and replaced them with cranberry juice, according to the affidavit. She then took the cranberry juice-filled syringes to the nurses’ station.

“It was later discovered that those syringes of cranberry juice were distributed to a patient… a hospice patient who is over 65 years of age. He is unable to speak and is prescribed Morphine to keep him comfortable during his time on hospice,” the affidavit states.

Unknowingly, the nurses gave him four syringes of cranberry juice in four hours, per the affidavit. In response, “[The Nurse] laughed the situation off stating that it would only be a couple doses and that they would be able to get him some more. As if to say, he wouldn’t be in pain long,” the affidavit reads.

Police then spoke to the assistant director of nursing who helped care for the hospice patient. She told police that the patient was in a lot of pain during this time and couldn’t get it under control, despite giving what she thought was his prescribed morphine, the affidavit states.

The assistant director told police that based on her professional opinion, the patient would have been in tremendous pain by not receiving the morphine.

A social worker also told police that on the day of the incident, she was surprised to find the nurse at the facility late (around 5:30 p.m.), according to the affidavit. She explained that the nurse works in wound care, which wouldn’t require her to stay late. She also told police that she saw the nurse carrying a “clear pitcher of cranberry juice” when she ran into her in the cafeteria.

After speaking with witnesses, Allen handed police 20 syringes with a light maroon-colored substance. Staff told police that the morphine comes from Albrecht’s Pharmacy “with a purple or maroon colored dye,” according to the affidavit.

All of the syringes were removed and replaced with actual morphine, Allen told police.

The nurse was arrested and booked in the Bosque County jail where her bond was initially set at $70,000 but later raised to $150,000. The nurse faces charges of diversion of a controlled substance by registrants, which means she stole drugs from a patient, Clifton Police Chief Chris Blanton clarified.