At Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, there were worries that someone was taking medicine, which was reported to the police last month.
The medical center said they were worried about a past worker who might have stolen medicine. Police say the nurse was switching out the Fentanyl in the patients’ IVs with tap water, which killed at least 10 people.
The nurse had been doing this to patients since the fall of 2022. When the medical center learned that this had happened in their building, they were devastated.
“We were upset to hear about this problem,” “We told the police about it and are working closely with them,” they said.
Health professionals say that this swap could lead to a lot of different symptoms and responses, such as infections and even death. “There was concern that this behavior led to poor patient care,” said Medford Police Lt. Geoff Kirkpatrick. “How bad the effect was on those patients has not yet been determined.”
It was reported to the families of at least two of the patients who had died by the hospital. Both Samuel Allison, 36, and Barry Samsten, 74, died of infections that were caused by getting dirty tap water injected into their IVs instead of the Fentanyl they were meant to get. Their families were told this. That’s why these deaths were directly caused by what the former nurse did.
At least 10 people have died so far, but the full number of patients who have been affected is still unknown because the effects are so broad and hard to pin down. It was said that the Oregon Health Authority was looking into it very carefully.
“Reports that the incidents caused healthcare-associated infections that hurt several patients badly and may have killed some of them,” they said.
