This post was originally published on this site
A Cape Cod Hospital emergency room nurse accused of stealing a significant amount of drugs — including the narcotic pain medication Dilaudid and the addictive sedative Ativan — from the hospital during a three-month period has been sentenced to 18 months of probation.
Carrie O’Connor, 36, of Plymouth, also was ordered to complete a substance abuse rehabilitation program after two counts of larceny under $250 filed against her in April were continued without a finding Wednesday, according to Barnstable District Court documents.
Nineteen felony counts of larceny of a drug against O’Connor were dismissed at the request of prosecutors, documents show. The dismissals were part of a plea deal, according to Tara Miltimore, spokeswoman for the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office.
In early January, Barnstable police were notified by hospital security personnel that O’Connor had pulled an unusually high amount of Dilaudid — nearly four times the amount of an average ER nurse — from an automated medication dispenser since mid-October, according to a police report.
On Jan. 9, a security officer and two ER nurse managers, adhering to hospital policy, cut the lock off O’Connor’s locker, finding an assortment of controlled substances, syringes and needles, the report says.
O’Connor later that week allegedly admitted to nurse managers that she would take medication home by accident and then throw it away, which is against hospital protocol for wasted medication.
When confronted with data of the amount of medication she removed from the dispenser, O’Connor began to cry, admitting to using Adderall and Dilaudid and injecting herself with Dilaudid at the end of her shifts, according to the police report.
The report says O’Connor denied using drugs while working her shifts at the hospital.