Diversion Of Narcotics: Nurse Disqualified From Direct Care Employment.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
December 2017
There is no eyewitness who can testify that the nurse consumed the narcotic pills or sold them or even took them away from the facility. There is proof she misappropriated residents’ property by fraudulently ordering and receiving more than 900 pain killers that were never given to residents.
MISSOURI COURT OF APPEALS October 31, 2017A technician from the pharmacy testified that the customary practice was for the nursing home’s nurses to phone or fax prescriptions to the pharmacy. The technician said he spoke with and received faxes from a nurse named Melissa for prescription orders for more than nine-hundred painkiller pills. There was only one Melissa working as a nurse at the nursing home.
A certified medication aide at the nursing home also testified. He said it was the customary practice at the nursing home after a medication order was discontinued for him to take the card out of the medication cart and give it to the charge nurse to send to the pharmacy to destroy. The pharmacy could not account for that being done with the cards for a number of residents.
The Missouri Court of Appeals ruled the evidence was sufficient that the nurse ordered medications in residents’ names that were never given to the residents. That alone amounted to misappropriation of residents’ property, an offense for which the perpetrator can be reported to the State as someone to be listed as disqualified from further care-giving employment.
Stewart v. Dept., __ S.W. 3d __, 2017 WL 49308687 (Mo. App., October 31, 2017).More references from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/narcotics-nurse-disability-discrimination.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/narcotics-discrepancies-nurse.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/narcotics-diversion-defamation.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/diversion-narcotics.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/opioid-dependence-nurse-disability-discrimination.htm