There is no evidence that the patient’s condition at 8:00 a.m. that morning would have or should have made the nurses at the methadone clinic think that the patient posed a danger to himself or others. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CONNECTICUT February 15, 2018
The patient had been getting methadone for five years at the VA outpatient clinic but interrupted it briefly for an inpatient hospitalization. He came back to the clinic for a scheduled 8:00 a.m. appointment with his regular nurse to restart the methadone. The nurse spoke with the patient, obtained the required urine sample and agreed to increase his dose to 110 mg from the 100 mg he had been getting every day before. At 8:44 a.m. another nurse had him take his methadone.
Shortly after 12:00 noon that day when the patient left the clinic grounds driving his pickup truck he struck a pedestrian in a crosswalk and killed him. The police who questioned him thought he seemed confused and delusional. Toxicology was negative for alcohol and positive for methadone.
The US District Court for the District of Connecticut found no evidence that the nurses did or should have thought that the patient posed a danger to others when they saw him that morning.
A potential legal problem lurked in the fact the first nurse did not chart his completely unremarkable interaction with the patient at 8:00 a.m. until almost 2:30 p.m., two hours after the fatal accident. The Court accepted that it was the nurse’s practice to do his charting later in the day when he had the time and saw no cover-up.
Simpson v. US, 2018 WL 910660 (D. Conn., February 15, 2018).More from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/methadone.htm