The Florida Department of Health revoked the license of a Jacksonville nurse after investigators discovered she was swapping pain medication for saline. This left many elderly patients without crucial pain relief, and families are furious.

About Elder Neglect

All types of caregivers commit elder neglect. There are many different types of abuse including failing to provide necessary medical care or allowing the elderly person to sit in filth. It is important to be watchful of neglect signs like dirty or unsanitary living conditions, poorly managed medications, bedsores, dehydration, malnutrition, and other unexplained or untreated medical conditions.

Nurse’s Pain Medication Elder Neglect

Instead of giving her elderly patients the medication they desperately needed, a Jacksonville, Florida nurse took the medication instead. Investigators running an audit of a medication dispensing cabinet began to notice that this nurse gave patients more doses of morphine, hydromorphone, and oxycodone more than her peers. Plus, maintenance workers a few months earlier unclogged a toilet in a nurses-only area. They discovered syringes caused the clog.
Further investigation revealed that the nurse would remove multiple full syringes of hydromorphone, inject it into herself, then refill the empty syringes with saline before returning to the MedStation. After her arrest, the nurse had hydromorphone, morphine, oxycodone, and oxymorphone in her system. Doctors did not prescribe these medications to her.  Therefore, many elderly patients were in a vast amount of pain due to this nurse stealing their medications.

Get Justice for a Loved One

If you suspect abuse or neglect, do not accept denials. Instead, contact a knowledgeable lawyer experienced with representing victims. When an abuser injures a resident at a care facility, it is not always obvious what happened and legal liability.  The evidence available is often incomplete and may be self-serving for the defendant – the nursing home. This is why a free consultation with us is so important. We have been assisting the injured for 20 years. We help clients from all over the country. Our consultations are completely free. Call today.