Nurse: Monmouth Medical Staff Gave Benadryl For Easy Night Shifts

LONG BRANCH, NJ — A nurse is suing Monmouth Medical Center, saying some of her colleagues at the Long Branch hospital routinely gave patients Benadryl to make them sleep, and never recorded it on the patients' charts. She said the nursing manager then retaliated against her when she reported the dangerous alleged behavior.

Moran filed her lawsuit this week, and she is represented by McOmber McOmber & Luber, which has an office in Red Bank. She is seeking a jury trial for the suit.

The nurse is Patricia Moran, who lives in Wall Township and has worked at Monmouth Medical Center for more than 30 years. The center is owned and operated by the larger Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health system network, and is is named in the lawsuit, too.

In her lawsuit, Moran said some of the nurses on her floor "knowingly misused and administered Benadryl, not for its intended uses, but instead to make a patient drowsy or fall asleep." The nurses also "deceptively failed to chart or note a patient received Benadryl for such a purpose, which is dangerous and undoubtedly against hospital policy," she alleged.

A spokeswoman for Monmouth Medical Center did not respond to the specific allegations when asked by NJ.com, but the center did release a statement saying it "is fully committed to providing a safe environment for our patients, visitors and staff. Per our policy, we are unable to comment on any individual employee or patient matter.”

Moran said she first started noticing this was happening in March of this year. She said she suspected that several of the overnight nurses were using Benadryl simply to put patients to sleep or make them drowsy to "lighten the workload for the night shift nurses," her lawsuit says.

The active ingredient in Benadryl is diphenhydramine, which is known to cause sleepiness. When combined with other drugs, the sedative effects of Benadryl can be dramatically increased.

Moran said she first noticed the misuse because the hospital's Pyxis machine, which dispenses and tracks hospital medications, automatically generates a report whenever Benadryl is given. But when Moran said she checked, there were no reports of Benadryl being dispensed.

"This confirmed that nurses were not providing accurate information regarding the use of Benadryl," according to her lawsuit.

When Moran reported the behavior to her supervisor, Clare Cinelli, who is her direct manager and supervised all the nurses on the floor, Cinelli began "a retaliatory campaign" against her instead of lauding her or thanking her, Moran said.

Moran said she started routinely being denied time on the schedule, was subject to increased scrutiny and became ostracized by the other nurses.

"Even worse, soon after plaintiff (Moran) reported the unlawful conduct and retaliation, she was deliberately 'floated' to the pediatric psychiatric unit and asked to do an admission," according to her lawsuit.

"Because she had neither observed nor completed such an assignment during her entire career, she appropriately indicated to the charge nurse that she lacked training or experience in handling a pediatric admission. When Defendant Cinelli learned of this incident, she falsely accused Plaintiff of 'refusing' an assignment and committing a 'terminable offense.'"

Cinelli and the hospital then placed Moran without pay for 14 weeks and gave her a final warning notice, her final notice before she would be fired.

All this occurred after Moran said she had never been disciplined in her 31 years of working at the medical center.