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A veteran's final, painful hours at the Bedford VA

Boston Herald - 9/20/2019

Sep. 20--A veteran's final hours of life were marked by "shallow breathing" and a "furrowed brow" -- signs he was suffering -- due to a hospice nurse at the Bedford VA hospital who is accused of stealing the man's painkillers, court papers show.

Kathleen Noftle, 55, of Tewksbury was charged this week with watering down morphine doses at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford that caused "increased suffering" for the dying patient, a federal indictment states. She has pleaded not guilty and has been released without bail.

The male veteran, identified only as "Patient 3," showed signs of distress the day before he died, and medical records allege Noftle's tampering "may have increased his suffering," the indictment adds.

Noftle ultimately admitted, the feds said, to taking drugs at the veterans' hospital in November 2017 and tampering with morphine doses for Patient 3 between Jan.13-16 of the same year. Patient 3 died on Jan. 16.

She allegedly pulled off the theft of the drugs by using her identification and password along with Patient 3's wristband to get morphine on 10 occasions within two days, giving the patient medication orally that was diluted with tap water.

Employees working after Noftle's evening shift noticed she left red caps containing liquid morphine in her medication cart and reported it, the affidavit states. One employee even took a photo of the "suspected morphine and used an oral syringe" to measure how much was left over, the affidavit states. Eighty milligrams was in the cap, prosecutors said.

Noftle admitted she planted one of the caps in a different medication cart to avoid added attention, prosecutors said. Any left-over morphine is supposed to be discarded in a special bin with a witness present, according to VA rules outlined in the affidavit.

An investigation into the morphine mix-up was launched on Jan.19, 2017, and Noftle denied any tampering two times in subsequent interviews on Jan. 23 and 27, prosecutors say.

In a Jan. 31 interview with her nurse manager, prosecutors said Noftle admitted she was "was not truthful about the diversion of morphine" and took responsibility for the red caps of medication left in the carts on Jan. 14-16. But Noftle said it was a result of "carelessness and not drug diversion," the complaint states.

Noftle was interviewed again by federal investigators on Jan. 31 of that year, in which she admitted to addiction issues and said she ingested the drugs that patients didn't use or diluted drugs she gave to patients. To conceal the alleged crime, she falsified medical records, the affidavit states.

Noftle previously worked at Tewksbury Hospital before her March 2015 employment at the Bedford VA, but resigned due to allegations of "failure to follow appropriate procedures when wasting narcotics on 60 occasions," the feds added.

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