An Oregon hospital has been hit with a $303 million lawsuit after allegations that one of its employees switched a patient’s medication for water, according to several news outlets.
The lawsuit, obtained by KDRV, was filed by 18 former patients of Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, Oregon, against the medical facility in Jackson County Circuit Court on Tuesday, September 3rd.
In the complaint, the patients accuse the health center of negligence through the “conduct of the hospital staff” because it did not “adequately check and monitor” the employees for the diversion of medications, did not “adequately train and monitor” its employees to “maintain protocols” and failed to “properly warn and control” “use of unsafe tap water” among other claims.
The complaint comes after a former nurse at the hospital, Dani Marie Schofield, was arrested and charged with second-degree assault after she was accused of replacing patients with fentanyl in IV bags with tap water, according to the Associated Press and Rogue Valley Times. According to the complaint, these procedures exposed patients to “bacterial infections.”
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“An employee of Defendant Asante misappropriated pain medication that was prescribed to Plaintiff’s patients who were in pain,” the lawsuit filed Tuesday said, adding that the employee “exposed” the patients to “bacteria and unsterile needles.”
“All the plaintiffs suffered pain that they say they would not otherwise have suffered and for a period of time that they would not otherwise have had to suffer,” the lawsuit states.
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center notified prosecutors in December that their IV bags of fentanyl had been replaced with tap water, according to the complaint, according to the AP. Of the 18 plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit, nine are dead, according to the media.
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The lawsuit seeks $303 million in damages for medical expenses, lost income and pain and suffering of those who died, the AP reported.
Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center and Shlesinger and deVilleneuve, the law firm representing the patients, did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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A separate lawsuit was filed in February against the hospital and Schofield alleging that Schofield switched a 65-year-old patient’s fentanyl IV with tap water, leading to his death, according to Rogue Valley Times.
Schofield was arrested following an investigation by Medford police, which was launched after hospital officials reported an increase in central line infections that occurred at the medical center from July 2022 to July 2023, according to the AP. She pleaded not guilty.
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Source: HIS Education