#Middlebury #Veterans
A registered nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center took vials of liquid morphine and other opioids from locked medical carts, painkillers that were intended for patients. He left behind in the vials a saline solution, basically saltwater. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison for tampering with a consumer product and acquiring a controlled substance by deception and subterfuge.
That’s it? Two years? He could have gotten 10 years in a federal prison and a fine of a quarter million dollars on the first count alone, with four years and another quarter million on the second, and they let him off with two years? That’s not the only case of short prison sentences for stealing painkillers from veterans.
A nurse at another VA hospital stole opioids, specifically hydromorphone, morphine and fentanyl. The vials were refilled with saline and put back in the automated medication management machine. She was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Sometimes the thieves don’t even get prison time. An ICU nurse stole drugs and didn’t bother to show on her application that she been fired from another hospital. The nurse was caught after she tampered with the override feature on the medication dispenser and took drugs such as morphine and oxycodone. In a single month she had overridden the machine 19 times. She was sentenced to two years probation for two felonies.
In one of the more gut-wrenching cases, in a VA medical hospice in New York, a nurse stole painkillers from dying patients and replaced them with Haloperidol, an anti-psychotic, which did nothing to relieve their suffering. He admitted to doctoring at least 25 syringes of oxycodone hydrochloride, used to treat moderate to severe pain. The patients were World War II and Korea-era veterans. He was sentenced to only 82 months in prison.
© 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.
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