A nurse at an Oregon hospital allegedly replaced pain medication with non-sterile tap water, introducing bacteria that led to a patient’s death, a lawsuit filed this week alleges.
Horace Wilson was admitted to Asante Rogue Regional Medical Centre in Medford with a lacerated spleen and broken ribs sustained when he fell from a ladder in January 2022, the complaint says.
As he recovered in intensive care from multiple operations, Wilson’s treatment team noticed “unexplained high fevers, very high white blood cell counts, and a precipitous decline”, the suit says.
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He died in the hospital on February 25, 2022.
“He was only 65, good health — so he should have been able to recover from this,” lawyer Justin Idiart, who filed the lawsuit, said.
Wilson’s treatment team obtained blood cultures that were positive for staphylococcus epidermidis, a type of bacteria that is believed to have been introduced by the tap water, the lawsuit adds.
The suit, filed on behalf of Wilson’s estate and his wife, Patti Wilson, accuses both the hospital and nurse Dani Marie Schofield, who allegedly swapped out the medication, of negligence.
Schofield did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Oregon State Board of Nursing records show she voluntarily agreed in November to her nursing license being suspended pending “completion of an investigation”.
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Centre, a 378-bed hospital, also did not respond to multiple requests for comment this week.
In Januaryx, it told NBC News it was “distressed to learn of this issue” and had reported it to law enforcement.
The civil lawsuit seeks nearly $US11.5 million ($A17.6 million) and appears to be the first legal action taken since Medford police confirmed in January they were investigating reports of drug theft at Asante.
The allegations of drug diversion — a term that refers to misappropriating prescribed medications, sometimes to abuse or illegally distribute them — were first made public by NBC affiliate KOBI-TV in Medford.
The station in December reported at least one patient had died at Asante after a nurse allegedly switched their pain medication with tap water.
Medford Police Department declined to comment on how many patients may have been victims of the alleged drug diversion.
The department said it is “actively investigating allegations of theft and misuse of controlled substances by an employee of Asante Rogue Regional Hospital”.
Police did not identify who was being investigated and added “no one has been charged with a crime as a result of this investigation”.
“Since December 2023, investigators have been diligently working on this case,” police said.
“Numerous interviews have been conducted, with many more yet to be completed. We are meticulously reviewing thousands of documents, including medical records, which require thorough examination and consultation with experts in the medical field.”
The wrongful death lawsuit alleges Asante began notifying patients or their families in December that a nurse had replaced fentanyl with tap water, causing bacterial infections.
Idiart said Wilson’s family was not among those contacted but, once they heard the reports of drug diversion, they suspected Wilson had also been a victim.
“They saw this turn for the worse and couldn’t get good explanations from Asante of what was going on,” Idiart said, adding the family observed “reactions like he was in pain, even though he was supposed to be sedated a lot of that time”.
The lawsuit alleges that, during Wilson’s hospitalisation, Schofield had been told to attach bags of the powerful painkiller fentanyl to a programmable pump, which delivered the medication to Wilson through a central line.
Central lines are tubes placed in large veins to administer medication. Bacteria and other germs can enter the bloodstream if the line isn’t inserted or cleaned properly, or if the fluid being administered isn’t sterile.
Allowing tap water directly into the bloodstream is not safe because a waterborne pathogen could enter the body and cause an infection.
Schofield marked in Wilson’s chart “on several dates” that he had received fentanyl when instead the bag allegedly contained water, the lawsuit says.
Wilson’s condition rapidly deteriorated to multi-system organ failure, according to the complaint. He required a tracheostomy to help him breathe.
“Eventually, Horace Wilson was weaned from sedation and recovered enough mental function to communicate to the ICU staff that he no longer wished to live this way,” the lawsuit says.
Idiart said he is investigating more potential claims connected to Asante. He said after police announced the investigation “we started getting lots of calls”.
Two other lawyers told NBC News they too have heard from people who are worried they or their loved ones were affected by the alleged drug diversion. The lawyers are investigating those claims but have not yet filed lawsuits.
Lawyer David deVilleneuve said some families he has spoken to are haunted by the possibility their loved ones might have survived had they received proper care.
Compounding their grief is the worry the patients may have suffered due to a lack of pain medication, he added.
“It’s a different process of mourning and grieving when you go from ‘My loved one died of natural causes’ versus ‘My wife was killed, or negligently killed’,” deVilleneuve said