Patients sue hospital for medication mix-up, negligence

Claimants say healthcare facility had lax supervision and policies in ensuring drugs were safe from theft

Patients sue hospital for medication mix-up, negligence

Life & Health

By Lyle Adriano

Sixteen patients and patient relatives have filed a lawsuit against Pittsburgh-based Jefferson Hospital, alleging that the healthcare facility was negligent in 2012 when a hospital pharmacy technician stole painkillers and replaced the drug with pills that do nothing for pain.

The stolen Oxycodone was meant to ease the severe pain of patients, including several who have been diagnosed with late-stage cancer, the lawsuit claimed. Other patients that needed the pain medication were recovering from amputation or surgery, or were victims of an accident.

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“[There was] at least a four-month period where patients in pain, who needed pain relief, did not get their pain relief and remained in pain,” attorney Alan Perer said. “It only came to light when a patient’s daughter looked at the pill that was being given by a nurse to her mother and said that did not look like an Oxycodone.”

“This isn’t something that the hospital discovered, and that’s what’s so upsetting about this,” said Jennifer Webster, another attorney. “[A brother of one patient] had been begging the nurses, ‘My sister’s in pain. She’s not someone to complain like this. These medications aren’t working.’”

Both Weber and Perer of SPK – the law firm of Swensen & Perer - filed the lawsuit in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday, WTAE-TV reported.

The suit is looking to hold Jefferson Hospital to account for failing to prevent the Oxycodone theft back in 2012. The then-hospital pharmacy technician responsible for the crime, Cheryl Ashcraft, had pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six to 12 months in prison, plus three years on probation. Ashcraft admitted to switching the Oxycodone pills for anti-nausea medicine or thyroid medication.


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