Nurse pleads guilty to theft of Demerol
A registered nurse pleaded guilty Monday to a theft charge for stealing Demerol from Uniontown Hospital in exchange for the attorney general’s office withdrawal of a felony drug charge. Gail Ritz, 33, of 1429 Georges Fairchance Road, Smithfield, made the deal, through her attorney Dianna Zerega, with Edward Cartwright, a narcotics agent with the Attorney General’s Office Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and Drug Control.
They came to the agreement before Ritz’s scheduled preliminary hearing before District Justice Mark Blair.
Assistant Fayette County District Attorney Kim Kovach said the agreement allows Ritz to keep her nursing license.
Hospital pharmacy director William Johnson and registered nurse Darlene Ferguson, who directs the intensive care unit, told Cartwight in January that narcotic dispensing records showed Ritz was withdrawing Demerol without doctors’ orders, for larger doses than physicians ordered for patients and in some cases more frequently that physicians ordered, according to an affidavit.
During a Jan. 16 interview, police said Ritz admitted to diverting various doses of injectable Demerol for her own use by writing false orders for the drug on patients’ charts.
Police said Ritz told Cartwright that she diverted several injectables at a time and used them over several days because she was addicted and needed counseling.
Police said Ritz told them she injected the drugs at home and never at the hospital, and that she did not sell the drugs. Ritz is free on bail.