What Happened
A registered nurse at St. Francis Hospital & Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut, turned off patients' narcotic infusion pumps for hours at a time and diverted the withheld doses.
The board found the pumps were shut down for periods between two-and-a-half and nearly eleven hours during September and October 2017, and that the nurse diverted hydromorphone, fentanyl and morphine for personal use. The nurse also falsified controlled-substance receipt records and failed to document medical and hospital records accurately — the falsification is what hid the missing doses from the record.
What the Board Did
The Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing suspended the licence for one year with a $2,000 civil penalty, then placed it on probation for five years with weekly random drug testing and therapy.
Two failures compounded here: patient-controlled analgesia was interrupted while patients were left waiting for pain relief, and the paper trail was edited to match. Either alone would have been serious; together they delayed detection for months.
Why It Matters for Diversion Programs
Board disciplinary records are the most complete public account of healthcare-worker diversion in most states, and this case was reported by a statehouse news outlet rather than by the board itself, so it carries the news-source caveat: the underlying action is documented, the surrounding detail is journalistic. A licensing action is also a lagging indicator. By the time a board acts, the diversion was normally found internally first, which makes a licence action a signal that inventory reconciliation, waste observation or dispensing oversight failed well before the board became involved.