Oregon hospital hit with $303M lawsuit after a nurse is accused of replacing fentanyl with tap water

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Attorneys representing each dwelling and deceased sufferers of an Oregon hospital filed a $303 million lawsuit towards the power on Tuesday after a nurse was accused of changing prescribed fentanyl with nonsterile faucet water in intravenous drips.

The wrongful dying and medical malpractice grievance accuses Asante Rogue Regional Medical Middle in Medford of negligence. The go well with says the hospital failed to observe medicine administration procedures and stop drug diversion by their workers, amongst different claims.

A spokesperson stated the hospital had no remark.

Dani Marie Schofield, a former nurse on the hospital, was arrested in June and charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault. The fees stemmed from a police investigation into the theft and misuse of managed substances that resulted in affected person infections. She has pleaded not responsible.

Schofield will not be named or listed as a defendant within the grievance filed Tuesday. A separate go well with was filed towards Schofield and the hospital earlier this 12 months on behalf of the property of a 65-year-old man who died.

The 18 plaintiffs within the new go well with embrace 9 sufferers and the estates of 9 sufferers who died. In keeping with the go well with, the hospital started informing them in December that an worker had changed fentanyl with faucet water, inflicting bacterial infections.

“All Plaintiff Sufferers had been contaminated with bacterium uniquely related to waterborne transmission,” the grievance says.

The entire plaintiffs skilled psychological anguish, in line with the go well with, which seeks hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in damages for medical bills, misplaced earnings and the ache and struggling of those that died.

Medford police started investigating late final 12 months, after hospital officers observed a troubling spike in central line infections from July 2022 by July 2023 and instructed police they believed an worker had been diverting fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a robust artificial opioid that has helped gas the nation’s overdose epidemic, however it is usually utilized in professional medical settings to alleviate extreme ache. Drug theft from hospitals is a longstanding downside.