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The state Board of Examiners for Nursing Wednesday disciplined two nurses, including a registered nurse from Branford who stole an opioid painkiller for her own use.
The RN, Alice J. Miller, admitted that on Nov. 24, 2016, she took the oxycodone, a consent order she signed with the board said. The same month, she also used alcohol or controlled substances to excess, the order said.
Her license was temporarily suspended, and Wednesday, the board continued the suspension for six months, followed by a four-year probation during which Miller must pass drug tests and attend therapy and support group sessions, the order said. The state Judicial Branch website contains no record of any case involving Miller.
The board also reprimanded RN Deirdre T. Kenny of Meriden and placed her license on probation for two years after she admitted that while working as a behavioral health home care nurse at Salute Homecare of Waterbury in March, she failed to discard a patient’s narcotic properly, a consent order she signed said.
Kenny also practiced outside the scope of an RN when in May, she gave the same patient 10 tablets of Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication, without a doctor’s order, the consent order said. Kenny also improperly gave the patient medical advice on how to take the Ativan, the order said.
During the probation, Kenny must take courses in ethics, boundaries, medication administration and the nursing scope of practice.
Kenny is employed as an RN nurse consultant for PJW Nursing Consultants of West Hartford, which places its consultants in residential group homes. During the probation, she is to have no role in maintaining any group home’s medication inventory, it said.
By signing the orders, both nurses chose not to contest the allegations.