ABC affiliate WMAR-TV reports that a nurse at Baltimore’s University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) has been convicted and sentenced for diverting morphine from a 10-year-old patient recovering from open-heart surgery last year.
The nurse, who had been assigned to care for the child in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, had documented in the patient’s medical record that she administered intravenous morphine; soon after, the patient complained of severe pain to her care team, reports WMAR. The nurse claimed to a colleague that she had given the patient a second dose—however, that dose wasn’t documented in the patient’s EMR.
WMAR reports that the nurse “claimed the child’s pain was not responding to the prescribed morphine. The care team rejected that belief, noting the child was opioid naive and that her pain had been well managed the previous day.”
The prosecution said that another nurse observed the accused nurse “exiting a staff bathroom with bruising and bleeding on her arm that could indicate intravenous drug use” during the shift in question. “Other PICU nurses later reported that Chalmers exhibited signs of impairment.”
The nurse, who refused a drug screening, was immediately removed from the PICU floor and fired, reports WMAR.
She pleaded guilty to obtaining morphine by fraud, and was sentenced to one year, suspending all but 30 days, with two years of supervised probation, reports the TV station. She also is “prohibited from caring for children during her probation and is excluded from participating in state and federal healthcare programs.”
UMMC sent WMAR a statement on the sentencing: “Integrity is one of the foundational values at the University of Maryland Medical Center and we have a zero-tolerance approach to unauthorized medication removal. Once we became aware of the nurse’s actions, she was immediately removed from the unit and subsequently terminated, and UMMC fully cooperated with regulatory and law enforcement agencies. The actions of this nurse do not reflect the values, mission or standards of our organization. The safety and well-being of our patients, visitors and team members is among our highest priorities and steps are being implemented to ensure that this cannot happen in the future.”
