You will receive a medication to help you “sleep” through the procedure.Photo: Echo / Getty Images
Dozens of victims are suing a fertility clinic after undergoing a routine treatment without proper pain medicine due to a nurse stealing the clinic’s supply.
More than 65 women visited the Yale University Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Clinic for a routine procedure in order to retrieve their eggs. However, they dealt with unnecessary pain during and after the process.
“It’s just this stabbing internal pain that no one should ever feel. Ever,” Angela Cortese, one of the victims, toldNBC.
“They made me doubt myself because nobody was listening, nobody was acknowledging the fact that I was saying I was in pain,” shesaid. “I was making it very clear."
It was later learned, following a federal investigation, that a nurse at the clinic, Donna Monticone, stole hundreds of vials of fentanyl for her personal use over a five month period in 2020, replacing it with a saline solution and leaving the patients in excruciating pain. Fentanyl is the pain medication used during and after the extraction process.
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In 2021, Monticone pled guilty to federal charges of tampering with a consumer product. She was also stripped of her nursing license. The following year, Yale University agreed to pay over $300,000 to the Department of Justice to resolve allegations that they violated the Controlled Substances Act.
However, the 68 victims are now suing Yale for failing to properly safeguard its supply of fentanyl.
“At the end of the day, I hold Yale responsible,” Czar told the outlet. “This never should have happened.”
“This is something that changed me and my family’s life forever,” Victoria Seidl, another victim, added to NBC.
“After Yale discovered the nurse’s misconduct, it removed her from the center, alerted law enforcement agents, and notified patients who might have been affected,” the statement continued. “The center also reviewed its procedures and made changes to further oversight of pain control and controlled substances.”
source: people.com
