Orlando VA nurse under investigation over missing fentanyl – Orlando Sentinel

A nurse at Orlando VA Medical Center in Lake Nona has resigned and is under investigation in connection with misuse and theft of prescription narcotic fentanyl, VA officials told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.

“When a loss is suspected due to internal diversion, swift investigation and action is taken,” they said in a statement.

Orlando’s VA is among five Florida VA medical centers to have lost prescription narcotics in-house or in the mail in 2016, according to the federal VA, which provided the information in response to a request from U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. In prescription form, fentanyl is used to manage severe or chronic pain.

The recent opioid epidemic has highlighted the issue of narcotic theft by medical staff, not sparing the Veterans Health Administration, the nation’s largest integrated health care system, with 1,200 sites.

Earlier this year, an investigation by the Associated Press showed that since 2009 there has been a sharp increase in opioid theft and missing prescriptions linked to VA employees.

The story prompted Buchanan to ask federal officials for specific information about the state. His area — Manatee County — reported the highest rate of fentanyl-related deaths in 2015 in Florida.

“The VA must do everything in its power to prevent drug thefts, which put our veterans and communities at risk,” said Buchanan in a news release on Monday, sharing VA’s response letter.

In its letter, the VA reports that in 2016, five Florida VA facilities at Orlando, Bay Pines, West Palm Beach, Tampa and Miami reported a total of 16 cases of prescription narcotic loss in the facility or in the mail. The losses affected 30 veterans, the department reported, without elaboration.

The letter didn’t link the cases of internal loss with a facility, other than reporting that two were directly linked to VA employees; in two other cases, the missing drugs were located; and in a fifth case, it wasn’t possible to find out who was responsible.

The department said that an employee at the Miami VA Health Care Center resigned before being fired and that Miami is “pursuing reporting the nurse to her State Licensing Board.” A Bay Pines VA Healthcare System employee received a 14-day suspension for a single instance of a missing narcotic, the department said.

On Monday, Orlando VA officials confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that a nurse in the Lake Nona facility had just resigned and is being investigated in connection with reported loss of fentanyl.

Local and federal VA officials say that most cases of controlled substance loss occur in the mailing system. Diversion of drugs by VA staff account for 1.5 percent of losses, they say.

In VA, controlled substances are counted every 72 hours, instead of every 2 years as required by law, according to officials.

“Individuals who are determined to divert controlled substances may find a way to do so despite the existence of robust control,” VA officials wrote in their letter to Buchanan.

There were no alarming trends of medication theft or loss in Lake Nona VA’s 2016 pharmacy inspection reports, according to public records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.