Caught stealing drugs

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I work in the ER at my facility. Recently there has been 2-3 nurses that were caught stealing narcotics. Usually my radar is pretty good when I come across someone who might "dabble a little in drugs". Well the last nurse that was caught totally blew me out the water. I never expected her to steal narcs (IV Dilaudid). Another nurse caught her in the act and she was immediately escorted into the DON office with the other Charge Nurses. She was given a choice to leave the ER and go directly to a Rehab facility or be reported to the nursing board and lose her license(the way the rumor was explained). It was told she went to rehab that very day.

Have any of you experienced a large amount of your nurses that you work with getting caught stealing narcs, if so, what drug of choice did they steal?

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I had a DON who was being provided controlled drugs by at least one of her favorite nurses. The nurse told me this during a heated conversation when she lost her cool when I witnessed her abusing a resident. Apparently she was trying to convince me that she could do no wrong in the eyes of the DON because she was the person who supplied the DON. Although I reported both the abuse and the diversion of narcotics, nothing was ever done. The nurse who was diverting the drugs to give to the DON and who physically abused a helpless resident, went on to pass the RN boards. The DON who was stealing drugs from her employer got in one argument too many with the administrator and was let go. Her license was put on restriction at her next place of employment due to her acts of negligence, but diversion of drugs was never mentioned. Some people get away with it. It pays to have a network of like-minded co-workers who will lie for you when necessary.

I am not surprized. I haven't witnessed such, myself (thank goodness), but have heard of many stories similar to this. These sorts are a close knit group and they usually want to reap benefits of being the pets of those in power...getting away with murder (similar to what you mentioned-abuse of patients), days off, choice vacation and holiday time, etc... Not worth it to me.

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Specializes in MICU.

thats crazy....you would hope these would be the people concerned with these issues WOW

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

I have never seen it and hope I never do.

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Specializes in Post Anesthesia.

High stress job with often back breaking lifting expectations, endless shifts without breaks. Constant access to potent meds with little or no supervision. It's no wonder so many nurses end up diverting narcs. I'm not making excuses for them but, there but for the grace of God go I.

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Specializes in Infusion Nursing, Home Health Infusion.

One nurse I used to know injected herself with Demerol and they found her down in the utility room. She ended up with a seizure disorder and then came to work in my state on the Med-Surg unit. Yep she did it again...we found her on the floor again next to the patients bed in room 449. Another nurse was taking Levodromoran and injecting in the bathroom. Another nurse,was taking Demerol,pocketing it ...but charting that she administered it to the patient. I thought her choice of patients was interesting. Some were getting good pain relief with a 5/500 Vicoden and then suddenly needed 2 doses of 100 mg of Demerol.

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Wow!!! Hats off to the ones brave enough to admit they had problems!! :yeah::bow::heartbeat

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People keep calling it diverting, is this nursing PC for stealing? Not being snarky but not sure why it's not just called stealing.

I'm sure there are times when medical professional steal drugs to sell them, they may not always be abusing them.

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.
Wow!!! Hats off to the ones brave enough to admit they had problems!! :yeah::bow::heartbeat

rnmomtobe2010 - Hello - my name is Anne and I am an addict, and I am also an RN. I went to treatment in 1999 and complied with our state's recovering nurse program. Sometimes we as addicts stress about people will think of "us" when they find out. Not everyone, unfortunately, has an open mind when it comes to that. Just wanted to tell you thank you for your posting. Those kinds of comments make us feel so much better about being an addict/alcoholic/ect.

Thank you!

Anne, RNC :paw::paw::paw::saint:

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Specializes in ER, TRAUMA, MED-SURG.
People keep calling it diverting, is this nursing PC for stealing? Not being snarky but not sure why it's not just called stealing.

I'm sure there are times when medical professional steal drugs to sell them, they may not always be abusing them.

Yes, you right that there are various reasons why nurses divert. I have known some who use themselves, give to a family member for their use, sell them, or even trade them for something else.

Anne, RNC

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I was caught diverting and it saved my life...opiates were my choice. I thank all those around me daily for my sobriety,if you do come across anyone that needs help I hope the people judging remember to walk a mile in their shoes first.

Sept 10,2008 2 years clean,coffee and cake party at my house!:yeah:

Yep.......I was caught in a routine pharmacy audit. My coworkers were stunned.

Like Tazzi, I am an addict who was caught diverting. My drug of choice was Demerol. I have been in recovery for 7 years, and will have my sobriety birthday on August 16th. Thank God for second chances!

Anne, RNC

rnmomtobe2010 - Hello - my name is Anne and I am an addict, and I am also an RN. I went to treatment in 1999 and complied with our state's recovering nurse program. Sometimes we as addicts stress about people will think of "us" when they find out. Not everyone, unfortunately, has an open mind when it comes to that. Just wanted to tell you thank you for your posting. Those kinds of comments make us feel so much better about being an addict/alcoholic/ect.

Thank you!

Anne, RNC :paw::paw::paw::saint:

:yeah:Thank you all for sharing. Congrats on your recoveries!

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Med-Surg..

One place that I worked at, a nurse was caught diverting ativan. Is this a common drug that gets diverted?

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Specializes in Medical.

I have had headaches as long as I can remember, of various severity but at least one a day almost every day. Not long after I started nursing I got my first migraine - until then I'd never been able to swallow tablets, and you have to really want paracetamol to chew it.

I was prescribed a number of meds for my migraines, including Panadeine Forte (500mg paracetamol/30mg codeine). After a while I started taking it for headaches, if they were bad, reasoning that at least I could be sure of hitting the pain on the head. It didn't impair me at all, and I never got any kind of buzz from the codeine - it was purely pain relief.

At that time P. Forte wasn't counted and if I was at work and didn't have any of my own to hand I'd take some from imprest. I certainly wasn't taking massive amounts (less than a dose a week or even a fortnight), perhaps half or two-thirds my stock, and I never thought of it as diverting (because it wasn't diverted from a patient) or stealing (because it wasn't expensive and it kept me at work, I suppose). Mostly I never thought about it at all.

Until we began admitting rebound migraine patients for supervised withdrawal and I realise that I could easily wind up being one of them myself. I stopped using P. Forte for anything but an actual migraine (which is only 2 -4 times a year), and started orthodontia (intervention at the first appointment dropped my headache frequency in half). Now I get a headache every few weeks and usually try water, rest, visualisation or food before reaching for... paracetamol or asprin.

Proximity to meds I'd never have had access to otherwise, and administering large doses of serious drugs (morph etc) certainly helped, but I have a family history of alcohol abuse and it didn't take much rationalisation for my behaviour to change.

The whole experience made me much more aware of how easy it is to slide into drug abuse, and how easy it is to rationalise. My experience was a far stretch from stealing hospital ID and coming back from the hospital I was fired from to 'borrow' drugs from wards (an incident that occured where I work), but it's on the same track, and it's more good luck than anything else that the experience didn't land me somewhere bad.

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