A nurse who worked at St. Cloud Hospital for 17 years has been charged with stealing a powerful narcotic from at least 23 patients for his own use and replacing the painkiller with salt water.
Blake D. Zenner, 42, of Kimball, Minn., was charged Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis with taking hydromorphone hydrochloride, a drug commonly sold as Dilaudid, which is used to relieve moderate to severe pain.
Along with being denied their prescribed painkiller, 23 patients in the same hospital unit developed infections because "there was contamination when the nurse removed the drugs from the IV [intravenous] bag," hospital spokeswoman Jeanine Nistler said Wednesday.
She said that the patients suffered unexplained fever but no long-term consequences from what the hospital termed "unusual bloodstream bacterial infections" or from the shortage of the painkiller.
All of the victimized patients "were contacted and given the opportunity face to face [with hospital officials] to have any concerns addressed," she said. In the wake of the thefts, Nistler said, changes were made immediately to make it "more difficult for things like this to occur." Among the new rules: requiring two medical professionals to be involved when the drug is administered, she said.
According to the criminal complaint:
For more than three months, from November 2010 to March 2011, Zenner sneaked into drug lockboxes at the hospital and withdrew the painkiller from intravenous bags intended for patients.
To conceal some of those thefts, Zenner refilled the bags with saline and returned them to the lockboxes.
