A nurse in Oregon was charged with 44 counts of assault for substituting water for liquid fentanyl in patients’ IV lines, depriving them of vital pain medication and leading to infections that may have been fatal to many of them, the Oregonian reports.
Officials elected to charge 36-year-old Dani Marie Schofield with second degree assault even though 16 of them subsequently died. Medical examiners could not conclusively determine conclusively, however, that the tap water Schofield used in the patients’ sterile central IV lines led to the infections that contributed their deaths; in many cases, the patients had other severe conditions cited as the cause of death.
All 44 patients involved were being treated in the Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center’s intensive care unit. Hospital officials originally called the police when they noticed an unusual spike in central line infections for patients in the unit. After a seven month investigation, police determined Schofield switched out the drug so she could use the narcotic herself later.