MEDFORD, Ore. — A former nurse at a southern Oregon hospital is facing criminal charges after harming nearly four dozen patients by stealing fentanyl and replaced with non-sterile tap water in intravenous drops.
Many of the patients developed serious infections, and 16 of them died, but authorities said they were not pursuing charges of murder, manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide because investigators could not determine that the infections caused these deaths. The patients were already vulnerable and were being treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit, Medford police noted.
Dani Marie Schofield, 36, a former nurse at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, was arrested last week and instead charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault. She pleaded not guilty on Friday and was held on $4 million bond Oregonian/OregonLive reported.
“After reviewing hospital records, patient files and pathology reports, MPD consulted with multiple medical experts, all of whom agreed that questionable deaths associated with this case could not be directly attributed to the infections,” police said in a news release.
The investigation began late last year after hospital officials noticed a disturbing spike in central line infections between July 2022 and July 2023 and told police they believed an employee had diverted fentanyl, leading to “adverse” outcomes for patients.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that has helped fuel the country’s overdose epidemic, but it is also used in legitimate medical settings to relieve severe pain. Drug theft from hospitals is a long-standing problem.
Schofield voluntarily agreed to no longer work as a nurse and to suspend her nursing license pending the outcome of the criminal case, Clark R. Horner, Schofield’s civil attorney, said in response to a ongoing civil proceedings filed against Schofield and the hospital in February.
The lawsuit was filed by the estate of Horace Wilson, who died at Asante Rogue Medical Center. He had sought hospital care on January 27, 2022, after falling from a ladder. He had bleeding from his spleen and had it removed.
But doctors then noted “an unexplained high fever, a very high white blood cell count and a steep drop,” according to the complaint. Tests confirmed an infection with treatment-resistant bacteria, Staphylococcus epidermidis. Wilson died weeks later.
In response to the lawsuit, Schofield denied that she was negligent or caused any harm to Wilson.
David deVilleneuve, an Oregon attorney, said he has been in contact with about four dozen former patients or their representatives who are investigating whether to sue over their treatment by Schofield. Only 15 of them appeared on the list of victims named in the indictment. He said he expects to file his first lawsuits in about three weeks.
DeVilleneuve said he was surprised prosecutors did not charge Schofield with manslaughter. But he noted that it would be more difficult to prove she caused the deaths in a criminal case, where the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt, than in a civil case, where it involves a preponderance of the evidence.
“Their burden of proof is higher than mine,” he said.
Asante contacted Medford police last December about a former employee “who they believed was involved in the theft of fentanyl prescribed to patients, which resulted in adverse effects to the patient,” according to the complaint.
That month, hospital representatives “began contacting patients and their family members and telling them that a nurse had substituted fentanyl with tap water, causing bacterial infections,” the report said.
Schofield faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and 10 months in prison on each charge with a possible maximum sentence of 10 years.