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A registered nurse working at St. Joseph Hospital downtown admitted to stealing fentanyl while on shift and is facing related charges.
A warrant was issued this week for M. Clem, 41, of Woodburn who was charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance by subterfuge and two counts failure to make, keep or furnish controlled substance records.
An investigation was launched after April 17, 2020, when it was discovered Clem had removed medication from the Pyxis automated medication dispensing system that stores medications for patients. He claimed two doctors had given verbal orders for the medication, which they both denied. He also failed to record any “waste” information regarding the medication.
A drug diversion investigator with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Indiana Attorney General took over the investigation.
The first day of the investigation, staff noticed Clem’s peculiar behavior and “his physical appearance was of some concern,” court documents said.
The charge nurse caught Clem sleeping at his station and had to call his name twice before he woke up and got out of his chair. He’d done the same thing the day before, staff said.
The charge nurse also noted that while she’d been in an isolation room dressed in “full PPE” and needed Clem’s assistance with a patient, she yelled three times for him before he looked at her.
She’d been asking him for a Foley catheter kit, but when he came back to the room, he gave her something she didn’t ask for, court documents said. He then “just left the room.”
A half-hour later, staff saw Clem leaning on the Pyxis station. “He appeared pale, with an almost gray complexion and he was sweating profusely. He started to take a step, but nearly fell having stopped the fall by grabbing a chair,” court documents said. A few minutes later Clem was seen pulling medication from the Pyxis station, entering the break room, exiting with his jacket on then going into the supply room.
Another staffer went to investigate and found Clem holding a 12-milliliter syringe with a 20-gauge needle, but appeared to be concealing it.
The pharmacy director pulled records for that shift and found Clem removed Fentanyl about 5 p.m. and about 7:30 p.m., identifying the two as verbal orders from two doctors. One of the doctors was not an active hospitalist, court documents said. There was also no waste documented for those two orders.
One of the patients received Fentanyl twice, Clem said, but the patient was being treated for alcohol withdrawal and was being administered Ativan, the drug normally prescribed for such patients, court documents said.
Clem was asked to submit an unsupervised urine sample April 18, 2020. He was in the restroom less than two minutes and produced a cup half full at 90 degrees with no extra urine in the toilet, court documents said.
Clem was told he could leave, but “lingered” and appeared sullen, which staff considered odd. The urine test came back negative.
During the investigation, Clem repeatedly denied stealing controlled substances, but in January, he admitted he took 500 milliliters of Fentanyl and injected himself with about 100 milliliters while on shift. He said he disposed of the rest of the Fentanyl.
He also admitted he never gave the Ativan patient any fentanyl.
A spokeswoman for the Lutheran Health Network declined to comment.
“It is our practice not to comment on current or former employees,” she said.