Addicted nurse steals powerful drug – Carroll Daily Times Herald

 

April 5, 2017

A 51-year-old Boone man is accused of stealing and abusing an extremely powerful painkiller while working as a specialist nurse at Manning Regional Healthcare Center, according to court records.

David Michael Anderson is charged with a felony for repeatedly stealing fentanyl — an opioid that is estimated to be up to 100 times more powerful than morphine — by pocketing the drug but claiming he had administered it to patients from December to March.

Anderson is a nurse anesthetist who specializes in pain relief and sedation, especially for patients who undergo operations and surgeries.

A spokeswoman for the hospital declined to say how long Anderson had provided anesthesia services there. Online court records show that Anderson has recent traffic citations in or near Manning in 2013 and 2014.

“As soon as we became aware of the situation, we worked with the authorities,” the spokeswoman, Sarah Foley, said.

“We terminated his contract immediately when we found out.”

A Medicaid fraud investigator filed a criminal complaint against Anderson on Tuesday for felony prohibited acts, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that has been increasingly abused in recent years by people who obtain it outside of a hospital setting.

The federal Drug Enforcement Agency issued an alert in 2015 that said fentanyl poses a nationwide threat to public health after several eastern states reported spikes in overdose deaths from the drug.

However, fentanyl abuse among nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists has long been a problem.

“Opioid addiction is a major issue in the anesthesia workplace,” according to a peer-reviewed study in 1993. “At least 26 anesthesia personnel in the United States have died of drug overdose in the last two years.”

The study cited data at the time that suggested that medical professionals who had ready access to powerful opioids were seven times more likely to be drug addicted than their peers.

“Physicians and other highly educated and highly functioning addicts may have a well-developed denial mechanism in place,” according to another study in 2009. They “are often described as having grandiose ideas of invulnerability and self-sufficiency.”

A 1990 study found that two-thirds anesthesiology residents — those who are still in training — who became addicted to opioids relapsed after they returned to work from treatment.

Indeed, the recent investigation into Anderson in Manning is at least the second time he has been caught stealing powerful opioids from a hospital.

The Iowa Board of Nursing punished Anderson in 2009 for taking and abusing sufentanil — the most potent synthetic opioid painkiller that is approved for humans. It is up to 10 times more powerful than fentanyl and is often reserved for patients who have developed a high tolerance to painkillers.

Anderson admitted at the time that he had been taking sufentanil from hospitals where he worked for about three years.

The board put Anderson on probation for a year and required him to seek addiction treatment and counseling and to comply with random drug tests to be sure he didn’t relapse.

The Manning hospital has a new agreement with a nurse anesthetist from Carroll to replace Anderson.

“Patient safety is No. 1,” Foley said. “Our services have not been discontinued.”