A Hialeah Hospital nurse withdrew drugs, but never gave them to the patients designated
The complaint that led to registered nurse Ines Perez being disciplined by the state didn’t say she stole pain and cough medication at Hialeah Hospital. It just said Perez withdrew drugs, ostensibly for four different patients, then didn’t document giving those patients the drugs or throwing the drugs away.
So, the final order from the state Board of Nursing fines Perez $500; charges her $4,781.94 in investigative costs; requires an eight-hour course in Legal Aspects of Nursing and another eight hours in Documentation.
Online Florida Department of Health records say it’s the first discipline on the license that Perez has held since December 2011.
Drugs out, drugs where?
Perez’s official address on her profile is 703 N. Flamingo Rd., the address of Memorial Hospital West in Pembroke Pines. In 2016, it was a residence in Miami’s Allapattah area and she was working at Hialeah Hospital.
The administrative complaint said the hospital used the Omnicell medication dispensing system, which required nurses to use a password or fingerprint scan to get medication. The drugs taken, the nurse taking them, the dosage, date, time, and patient for whom they’re being obtained are recorded.
Hialeah Hospital required nurses also document when they give the medication to the patient on an electronic record. If any drugs are withdrawn, but not given, hospital rules said the nurse had to trash it with another nurse as witness. This would be recorded as “waste” on Omnicell.
On March 2, 2016, the complaint says, between 10:25 a.m. and 4:58 p.m., Perez pulled four 5/325mg oxycodone-acetaminophen tablets for a patient. She “failed to document administering and/or wasting” any of the pain medication, a Schedule II controlled substance, which, the complaint says, “has a high potential for abuse...”
On March 11, 2016, the complaint says, between 7:48 a.m. and 3:26 p.m., Perez withdrew four acetmaniophen-codeine No. 3 tablets for a patient and never documented giving them or trashing them.
The next day, the complaint says, Perez pulled three doses of hydrocodone-homatropine 5 ml syrup a “narcotic cough suppressant.” Not only does the complaint say there’s no record of the patient receiving the doses, but the patient didn’t even have a physician order for it.
Perez pulled doses of the same prescription cough syrup for a different patient twice on March 18, 2016; twice on March 19, 2016, three times on March 25, 2016; and five times on March 26, 2016, the last two within 40 minutes of each other. The complaint says none were given to the patient or were documented as disposed.
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 11:59 AM with the headline "A Hialeah Hospital nurse withdrew drugs, but never gave them to the patients designated."
