Nurse’s License Restricted, Intravenous Painkillers Diverted

A registered nurse had her license restricted after one hospital found intravenous painkillers being diverted for personal use and another found hypodermic needles stuffed down a nursing area’s clogged toilet. In some cases the syringes were refilled with saline for patients.

She worked at Baptist Medical Center and Memorial Hospital.

Police were contacted in February by Baptist Health’s pharmacy director regarding “possible diversion of medication” by the RN following an audit. Detectives learned she had been working there for five months.

The hospital audit found the nurse had dispensed “far more IV [intravenous] narcotics” than other nurses working the same area with similar patients, the report said. Hospital officials then found hypodermic syringes clogging the toilet in a nurses-only area in mid-December 2017, the same day the accused was working.

Further review showed two of her patients were listed as having been given painkillers by hypodermic instead of the recommended pill form, the report said. A third was given IV painkillers, even though that patient was in a procedure that day. Records listed two more patients getting multiple injections of painkiller, when neither was experiencing pain.

Confronted with the audit by detectives, the nurse said she was in a serious car accident three years earlier and that pain medication was prescribed to her.

Detectives also went to Memorial Hospital on Aug. 8, where risk management officials reported possible diversion of a painkiller from an automated dispenser by the nurse “injecting it into herself,” the report said. Hospital officials noticed “injection scars on her left arm,” as did detectives.

“She admitted the marks are where she had been injecting the IV drugs,” the arrest report said.

Memorial Hospital officials suspended her pending a drug test that later proved positive, the report said. They also had video surveillance showing her taking syringes of painkiller from an automated dispensing machine, then returning them later.

“The nurse in question removed multiple full syringes of hydromorphone from a Pyxis MedStation at Memorial, injected the hydromorphone into herself, refilled the empty syringes with saline and returned the syringes to the Pyxis MedStation,” the Department of Health order states.

She was arrested on two charges of obtaining controlled substances by fraud, according to court records.

When she was evaluated after her arrest by a doctor specializing in addiction medicine, she confirmed using drugs and alcohol to “escape an abusive marriage,” the state report said. Her court records show a 2016 divorce and a 2017 domestic violence injunction she filed.

“The woman stated that she tried to stop using and diverting opioids on numerous occasions but was unable to stop,” the report said.

Health Department spokesman Brad Dalton said she has 30 days to appeal as they proceed toward disciplinary action on the license.