Women Reach Settlement After Yale Nurse Switched Painkillers with Saline Solution

Last week, a group of women who experienced severe pain at a fertility clinic at Yale University after they received saline instead of a painkiller had their suits against the Ivy League school settled. This settlement comes after seven women sued the institution in 2021. Soon after, more patients filed lawsuits, which brought the number of plaintiffs to more than 150. Most of them claimed that because of their experience at the clinic, they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

One of the plaintiffs, Soryorelis Henry, stated that the experience, which should have been joyous and hopeful, became traumatic.

Collectively, the patients say they went through very invasive and painful procedures for IVF and were to receive a painkiller to manage the pain. Instead, the nurse in charge administered saline to them then took the fentanyl for her own use.

When the women informed staff at the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility clinic at the institution, their concerns were dismissed. The nurse in question, Donna Monticone, was sentenced to four weekends in prison in 2021 after she pled guilty to a count of tampering with a consumer product. Her sentence also included three years of supervised release and three months of home confinement.

Prosecutors revealed that more than 70% of the fentanyl administered to patients at the clinic between June and October 2020 was mixed with saline. It was determined that Monticone replaced the drug to feed her addiction to opioids, with the defendant herself apologizing to the patients affected during her sentencing hearing.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Joshua Koskoff, also revealed that the defendant’s misconduct had been going on for years. In a statement, Koskoff noted that the institution ignored the cries of many women with no one looking into why so many women who didn’t even know each other would all experience excruciating pain for a procedure that Yale University marketed as causing minimal to no discomfort.

In the lawsuits, Yale officials were accused of not following the mandated pharmacy protocols and allowing fentanyl vials to be tampered with. The lawsuits also claim that the institution violated both federal and state laws by storing more than 175 fentanyl vials in an unlocked and unsupervised area.

While the details of the settlements weren’t released, the lawyers noted that they included notable financial settlements. In a statement, Yale revealed that the signed agreement allowed parties to begin healing. The institution added that it had established new safeguards, which included more supervision and training.

These many lawsuits against one medical facility arising out of the misconduct of one employee make a strong case in support of the technologies that companies such as Nutriband Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRB) are developing to minimize the likelihood of diversion, misuse or even abuse of opioids not only in hospital settings but even among legitimate users who may wish to share their supplies with unauthorized users.

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