A nurse anesthetist, Alvin Earl Parkes, who worked for decades at Pulaski Memorial Hospital and Montgomery Regional Hospital (Blacksburg, VA) pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges that he stole the medicine that was supposed to numb patients undergoing surgery.
Parkes admitted in U.S. District Court in Roanoke that between July and September of 2008, he removed fentanyl citrate from vials at Pulaski Community Hospital and replaced it with saline solution in an attempt to avoid detection.
What happened to those patients who received a “watered down” dose of fentanyl? For one, they experienced much more pain than they would have had they received the correct dosage of their pain medication.
My bet is that nurse Parkes had been wrongfully taken these medications for longer than 3 months.