Families claim in $303 million lawsuit that Oregon nurse replaced fentanyl infusions with tap water

An Oregon hospital is being sued for $303 million in damages by patients of a former employee. The employee is accused of replacing intravenous fentanyl infusions with tap water, causing bacterial infections and several deaths, according to a civil lawsuit.

The 18 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, obtained by USA TODAY, were treated at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, Oregon. The hospital is accused of “negligence” in connection with a former nurse who “had a tendency to abuse drugs,” according to court documents filed Tuesday in Jackson County District Court.

“This should never have happened,” Shayla Steyart, an attorney for the patients, said in a statement to USA TODAY on Wednesday. “We hope the hospital takes this matter seriously enough to prevent this from ever happening again. We want justice for our clients and their families.”

Half of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are described as “deceased.” Asante began informing patients of the nurse's actions in December 2023, the lawsuit says.

“All of the plaintiff patients suffered pain that they would not otherwise have suffered and for an extended period of time that they would not otherwise have had to endure,” the lawsuit states.

Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center did not respond to USA TODAY's request for comment on the lawsuit on Wednesday.

“I tried to survive”: Patients at the Yale Fertility Center say there have always been signs of neglect

Dani Marie Schofield charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault

Dani Marie Schofield, a 36-year-old former nurse at Asante, was charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault on June 12, the Jackson County District Attorney's Office said in a news release. The charges stem from a Medford police investigation into theft and abuse of controlled substances that led to serious infections in patients at the hospital from July 2022 to July 2023, the district attorney's office said.

The prosecutor's office began reviewing the results of the investigation into Schofield in early April, the press release said. Authorities interviewed dozens of witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of files, prosecutors said.

“The state must prove that the actions of the accused person were the cause of the victim's death,” the prosecutor's press release said. “Investigators in this case consulted several medical experts who agreed that they could not conclude that the patients' deaths were directly attributable to the infections.”

Schofield pleaded not guilty during her June 14 arraignment, the Oregonian reported. She is not named in the $303 million lawsuit but faces another civil suit filed by the estate of 65-year-old Horace E. Wilson, the newspaper said.

Estate of deceased 65-year-old patient sues Oregon nurse

Wilson, the founder of a cannabis company called Decibel Farms in Jacksonville, Oregon, died in February 2022 after receiving treatment at Asante, according to the $11.5 million civil lawsuit obtained by The Oregonian. The 65-year-old man went to the hospital after falling off a ladder and suffering a spleen hemorrhage, which he subsequently had removed, the court document added.

Doctors became suspicious when Wilson developed “unexplained high fever, very high white blood cell counts and a steep drop in his levels,” the lawsuit says, according to the Oregonian. Tests confirmed and showed that Wilson was suffering from Staphylococcus epidermidis, a treatment-resistant bacterial infection. He died weeks later after the infection led to multi-organ failure, the lawsuit says, according to the Oregonian.

USA TODAY contacted Schofield's defense attorney on Wednesday but did not receive a response.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oregon nurse Dani Marie Schofield charged with assaulting hospital patient