Nurse pleads guilty to stealing drugs from hospital
A Lemont Furnace nurse pleaded guilty Monday to stealing drugs from the Uniontown Hospital for her own use and will receive a probationary sentence for the crime. It was the second time in two years that she was charged with violating the pharmacy act.
LeeAnn Collins, 41, of 142 Fiddlers Green Road admitted in Fayette County Court that she forged the name of another nurse on a pharmacy order for hydrocodone between Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 2001.
A hospital pharmacist reported that he’d received faxes requesting the cough suppressant Vicodin be sent to the telemetry – or cardiac care – unit where Collins worked. The medication was not ordered for the patients listed, according to the arrest affidavit. Nurse Bobbie Balsone signed the order, dated Nov. 28, 2001. However, Balsone did not make the order, according to authorities.
Agent Edward Cartwright of the Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics questioned Collins, – whom he’d arrested before on similar charges, and she admitted to taking the drugs for herself.
She was charged with a violation of the pharmacy act and possession of the drugs. Under a deal with the state attorney general’s office, Collins will receive a sentence of three years probation.
When Cartwright approached Collins, she told him she remembered him as the agent who arrested her in 2000 for stealing hydrocodone from the hospital.
In that case, Cartwright charged that Collins diverted hydrocodone tablets in the form of Vicodin and Lorcet sent to the telemetry unit on 13 different occasions during a one-month period.
A pharmacist in that case noticed that five tablets were sent to the telemetry unit during a one-hour period for one patient. When confronted with that, Collins admitted that she took the pills and returned them to her supervisor, according to court records.
Collins, in that case, said that the tablets were for her own use, and admitted to taking pulls from patients’ rooms.
Records for the 2000 case indicate that Collins told Cartwright she used the pills to relieve arthritis symptoms, and never took them at work. However, she told Cartwright that she needed more pills as her tolerance to the medicine increased.
Collins pleaded guilty to a violation of the pharmacy act in that case, and was put on one-year probation on Dec. 18, 2000. She was freed from probation a year later.
Calls to the state attorney general’s office seeking to find out if Collins violated that earlier probation for obtaining drugs between Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 2001 were not returned.
During the questioning for her guilty plea in this latest case, Collins told Judge Conrad B. Capuzzi that she did not have drug or alcohol problems, but had been treated for an emotional or mental disorder.
Capuzzi said he would fix a later date for sentencing.