A nurse stole morphine to sleep better

Photo Agence QMI, Philippe-Olivier Contant
Genevieve Comtois, nurse

Hugo Duchaine

Friday, 9 February 2018 22:07

UPDATE
Friday, 9 February 2018 22:07

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A nurse Laval has admitted stealing doses of morphine and Dilaudid for about 10 months before getting caught, because these drugs were helping him to sleep.

“I very much want “, recently said in tears, Genevieve Comtois, before the disciplinary Board of the College of nurses. He was accused not only of stealing of narcotics, but also to have had the use of processes disloyal to obtain them.

The life of the young nurse has switched to 2015, when it prepared a dose of Dilaudid for a patient in the Cité de la Santé in Laval, who died before she could give him. Rather than discard the syringe,

Ms. Comtois has been hidden and swept away in it.

33 anomalies

A “gesture serious,” according to the lawyer of the syndicates deputy of the Order, Marie-Eve Giguère, that the nurse then repeat. When his employers discovered the pot aux roses, they are denoted 33 anomalies registry to track the trace of narcotics.

The nurse had access to the cupboard where were kept the drugs. When she stole a dose, it was in the registry under the name of a patient, sometimes even copying the signature of a colleague.

The Hospital cross-checked, at the end of each shift, the number of doses of medication corresponded to that recorded on the register.

She also admitted to having taken the medication from vials to half-empty that needed to be disposed. It replaced the content of the water so that his colleagues don’t notice. Mrs. Comtois was taken when another nurse was assigned a dose of medication to a patient who had yet to leave the hospital.

Studies and work

During her testimony, the nurse revealed that she was going through a stressful period in his life. She worked while she was studying full time to complete his bachelor of science in nursing. She was suffering from anxiety, depression and couldn’t sleep, she said.

Ms. Comtois is working in a grocery store since she lost her job, but wants to become a nurse after its cancellation. “I miss it terribly “, she explained. It is exposed to a radiation of nine months and a limitation of practice, far short of the narcotic of nine months.

“It has tainted the profession […] it occurred very early in his practice,” argued ms. Giguère. The disciplinary Board has 90 days to make its decision.