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A former nurse at Rutland Regional Medical Center is charged with repeatedly stealing medication over the course of a month.

Trisha M. Nash, 50, pleaded not guilty Monday in Rutland criminal court to a felony charge of prescription fraud. If convicted, she could face a maximum of two years and one day in prison and a $5,000 fine. She was freed on the condition she not have any regulated drugs without a prescription.

According to an investigator from the Vermont Office of Professional Regulation, Nash had been a registered nurse working at the hospital for 25 years when she took a medical leave in December and subsequently resigned. OPR received a report in January that Nash was suspected of stealing multiple doses of narcotics.

Court records show that the hospital uses a device called an Omnicell to track medication. Each nurse had a unique password for using the Omnicell, according to affidavits, and it records the exact time and amount each time a nurse withdraws medication.

Prior to looking at her activity handling medication, Nash’s supervisors had received “multiple reports of bizarre behavior, communications challenges, questionable narcotics waste and attendance issues,” according to affidavits.

Investigators said that during a roughly one-month period, from Nov. 16 to Dec. 17, the Omnicell recorded 30 occasions on which Nash performed an override and withdrew twice as much medication as had been ordered by a doctor or that she then documented administering to a patient. Morphine was taken on 19 of those occasions, according to affidavits, and 11 were Dilaudid.

The hospital requires that a second nurse witness the disposal of medication that is prescribed but not administered, and affidavits indicated that disposals by Nash were delayed, sometimes by hours. Nash later told investigators that she would pocket the remaining medication and then dispose of a vial of saline in front of the witness, according to affidavits.

Investigators said they also learned that from July 2016 to February 2017, Nash had been prescribed up to 100 tablets of Oxycodone a month due to a back injury she had sustained at work.

When confronted, investigators said, Nash admitted to diverting the drugs for her own use, saying she was “self-medicating” to help herself “function.” She said she did not use while she was at work.

“It’s something that I thought I would never, ever do,” she said, according to affidavits. “I think I wanted to be caught, I wanted somebody to help me.”

Nash told investigators she had just completed a 30-day residential treatment program.