In 2020, nurse at a Connecticut clinic associated with Yale University frequently stole the opioid fentanyl, leaving mostly saline solution behind for patients headed into painful procedures.
Now, close to 60 women have joined a lawsuit alleging that “painkillers had been tampered with for years,” at the Yale Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility clinic, according the Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder law firm.
Donna Monticone, the nurse who pleaded guilty to tampering with fentanyl vials at the clinic, was sentenced last May to serve three years of supervised release, as well as four weekends of incarceration and three months of home confinement. She began stealing fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that is 50-100 times stronger than morphine – in June 2020, said the U.S. Department of Justice.
An investigation found that approximately 75% of the fentanyl given to patients from June through October of that year was adulterated with saline.
“Some of the vials contained diluted fentanyl, while others contained no drug at all and contained just saline,” the Justice Department said.
Fentanyl is “a component of a cohort of drugs used by Yale physicians during outpatient surgical procedures to anesthetize patients and protect them from feeling pain,” it explained. The drug is intended for medical use and can be dangerous when used recreationally.
In recent years, synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have contributed to the increase in drug overdose deaths in the U.S., according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the Justice Department, Monticone was aware that in absence of an anesthetic during an outpatient procedure, patients were vulnerable to serious bodily injury when she took the vials of fentanyl home and refilled them with sterile saline solution.
Per the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Yale clinic’s patients, “dozens, perhaps hundreds, of women underwent the most painful fertility surgeries and procedures offered at the REI Clinic with little or no analgesia.”
Initially, seven women sued the clinic late last year. Since then, more have joined.
One patient, Laura Czar, went in to freeze her eggs, as she was going to start breast cancer treatment.
“My IVF procedures were beyond pain, it was torture that I endured and Yale’s medical staff completely ignored me and my suffering,” she said, according to the New Haven register.
“This is something you never think that’s going to happen to you and something that almost feels like something was taken from you,” said Victoria Seidl, another patient, according to NBC Connecticut.
A complaint on behalf of the victims alleges that fentanyl tampering at the clinic went on even longer that the five-month period Monticone was sentenced for. It also said the Yale REI clinic claims it became aware of the tampering when a colleague noticed a loose cap on the fentanyl vial.
According to the New Haven Register, the complaint alleges that the clinic “repeatedly ignored multiple complaints from women that they had experienced excruciating pain during IVF egg extractions, and other painful procedures, and failed to implement appropriate standard systems to prevent and detect diversion.”
Yale spokesperson Karen Peart said university officials would not comment on the lawsuit, according to a November ABC News report.
Fentanyl theft by medical professionals has been reported at other clinics as well. Last May, a New York nurse pleaded guilty to stealing 1,467 vials of fentanyl from North Shore University Hospital, said the Drug Enforcement Agency. This Tuesday, Pittsfield, Mass., nurse Jessica Lotto pleaded guilty to stealing fentanyl that was being administered to a patient in a critical care unit at Berkshire Medical Center in 2019. She is expected to be sentenced in January.
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