Top Oregon hospital charged after nurse allegedly killed nine patients by switching their fentanyl IVs for tap water
An Oregon hospital is being sued after a nurse allegedly killed nine patients by switching their fentanyl for tap water.
Attorneys filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of living and deceased patients against Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, accusing the facility of negligence and failing to properly monitor the administration of medications.
The $303 million lawsuit comes after Dani Marie Schofield, a former nurse at the hospital, was accused of killing 65-year-old Horace Wilson by stealing his supply of fentanyl, which he used to treat his pain, and replacing it with contaminated water.
The new complaint names 17 other patients who Ms Schofield says also changed medications, including the families of nine patients who died.
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, Oregon, is being sued after nurse Dani Schofield allegedly stole patients’ fentanyl and replaced it with water
According to a separate lawsuit, 65-year-old Horace Wilson died after Ms. Schofield allegedly replaced his fentanyl supply with water, causing a bacterial infection and sepsis
The hospital is named as a defendant in the new lawsuit. A separate lawsuit filed by Mr. Wilson’s family in February names both the hospital and Ms. Schofield.
Asante is accused of failing to monitor the administration of medications and failing to prevent medications from being taken from patients to their employees.
Other complaints include that the company failed to adequately screen its employees, that its tap water contained unreasonable levels of bacteria, that the company failed to properly warn of unsafe tap water and that the company failed to properly monitor its use, and that the company acted indirectly through the actions of its employees.
Medford police began an investigation into the situation late last year after the department said it received “numerous calls from individuals asking if they or a family member had been affected by the alleged actions of the former Asante employee.”
According to the lawsuit, the hospital began informing an unknown number of affected patients in December that a hospital employee had replaced their fentanyl with tap water through IVs.
This led to bacterial infections in every patient, as the water was suspected to be contaminated.
The complaint states that “all of the patients who filed as plaintiffs were infected with a bacteria that is transmitted exclusively through water.”
All of the patients experienced “mental anguish,” the lawsuit said, and nine reportedly died as a result of the nurse’s actions.
Ms. Schofield was arrested in June and charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault.
She left her job the following month and pleaded not guilty. She said The Lund Report: ‘The truth will, I am sure, come out.’
It is not clear why Mrs Schofield stole the drugs.
One of the victims of Ms Schofield’s alleged actions was Mr Wilson. He was admitted to Asante in January 2022 after falling 10 feet from a ladder and damaging his spleen, an avocado-sized organ in the left rib cage that helps filter blood.
Doctors removed his spleen, but within days of the operation his condition deteriorated after Mrs Schofield allegedly put water into his IV.
Mr. Wilson was infected with the bacteria Staphylococcus epidermidis, which entered his bloodstream and was “essentially incurable,” according to a separate lawsuit filed by his family for $11.5 million.
He then developed multi-organ failure due to sepsis, a deadly overreaction of the immune system in which the body attacks healthy organs and tissues.
He died on Feb. 25, about a month after he was first admitted. Before he died, Wilson recovered enough cognitive function to tell medical staff in the intensive care unit that he “did not want to live this way any longer,” his family’s lawsuit says.
