A lawsuit claims that a southern Oregon woman was left so physically debilitated she lost her job and home and requires full-time care after a nurse replaced her fentanyl with tap water at a Medford hospital.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Jackson County Circuit Court, is the third of its kind that seeks millions from Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center over alleged drug theft that authorities say sickened at least dozens of patients.
The most recent lawsuit seeks $116 million on behalf of Candi Kay Palomares, a 62-year-old patient who now struggles to breathe and walk, often falling and is unable to stand for “any length of time.” She has a catheter, colostomy bag and feeder tube as the result of the infection she allegedly received at the hospital.
“Ms. Palomares now requires professional health care assistance to change the catheter, feeder tube and daily assistance with normal living requirements such as bathing, toilet functions, and necessity of life requirements, such as shopping, and attending to medical care appointments (which have increased substantially),” the lawsuit states.
She lost her job managing a mobile home park as well as the housing that was provided as part of compensation for the job. Additionally, her physical limitations mean she can no longer enjoy time with her children and grandchildren, while suffering from depression, sleeping issues, nightmares and night sweats.
The lawsuit also targets Dani Marie Schofield, a nurse who has been accused of infecting patients by replacing drip bags of the powerful opioid painkiller for non-sterile tap water. Schofield is out on $4 million bail after pleading not guilty to 44 counts of assault in connection with the alleged drug diversion.
Last week, a group of 18 patients sued Asante Rogue for $303 million on related allegations. A lawsuit filed earlier seeks $11.5 million from Asante and Schofield on behalf of the estate of a man who died of his infections he acquired at the hospital.
Schofield has denied wrongdoing. She and Asante have previously denied the allegations in court. The latest lawsuit claims that Asante “knew or should have known of the high likelihood of opioid diversion by one of its employees for their own use given the prevalence of such acts throughout the United States.” The lawsuit states that Asante “discovered diversion of controlled substances by one of its nurses from about August 2016 through July 2017.”
The lawsuit faults Asante for not ensuring a proper nurse-to-patient ratio, monitoring its supply of the powerful opioid painkiller and screening employees for possible drug abuse.
An Asante spokesperson declined to comment. An attorney representing Schofield did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘Missing fluid’
According to the lawsuit, Palomares was air-transported from the Curry Medical Center emergency department in Brookings on March 26 to Asante Rogue to receive treatment for “severe respiratory distress.”
She was admitted to Asante Rogue’s intensive care unit where her chest X-rays indicated hypoxemic and hypercapnic respiratory failure, caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia. After being admitted, Palomares was provided with blood pressure support and ordered intravenous fluids, including fentanyl.
The lawsuit claims that hospital records show that Schofield was the only nurse who was ordered to administer fentanyl to Palomares during her March 26 shift. Specifically, she administered the drug three times using “hang bags” containing a solution of the pain medication to a pump that dripped into Palomares’ bloodstream at a prescribed rate, according to the lawsuit.
“In order to divert the fentanyl, Defendant Schofield replaced this entire quarter of a liter of ‘missing fluid’ with non-sterile tap water, thus reintroducing new inoculums of the bacterium Stenotrophomonas into Candi Palomares’s bloodstream via her IVP line each time she administered the solution,” the lawsuit states.
The next day, Palomares’ physician determined that a “possible foreign body” was in the right lower lobe of her lung and she continued to receive infusions of fentanyl and other medications through intravenous peripheral venous catheter, according to the lawsuit.
By March 27, she was transferred to the hospital’s intermediate care unit after she appeared to be improving, but just days later her condition worsened and she became increasingly agitated and delirious, according to the lawsuit.
Blood tests showed she had multiple infections, including Stenotrophomonas Bacteremia, the lawsuit states. She suffered from respiratory distress with an increased heart rate of up to 150 beats per minute, well above the average rate of 60 to 100 beats per minute, and was admitted to the hospital’s coronary care unit where she remained in critical but stable condition, according to the lawsuit.
“As her stay in the intensive care unit continued, Ms. Palomares demonstrated multiple clear markers of suffering from episodes from increasing oxygen requirements, increased heart rate and confusion requiring a sitter at her bedside continuously until she was later transferred back to the critical care unit,” the lawsuit states.
Further testing showed that Palomares was infected with Stenotrophomas maltophilia, a drug-resistant bacterium that can be difficult to treat, as well as the bacterium Delftia acidovarans.
