Abington Hospital Fined $510,000 After Employee Stole Medicine: US Attorney

ABINGTON, PA -- Abington Memorial Hospital has been fined $510,000 after an employee allegedly gave away controlled substances, according to the U.S. District Attorney, Eastern District.

Officials allege that the incident occurred because Abington did not have sufficient controls on employees. The employee, Renata Dul, a pharmacist at Abington's inpatient pharmacy, stole large volumes of prescription medications, including painkillers like oxycodone. A total of 35,000 pills were stolen between February of 2010 and August of 2013, authorities said.

A DEA investigation revealed altered or missing drug records which had not been noticed by Abington.

Dul has been sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of 25 counts of possession with the intent to distribute oxycodone.

“Hospitals like Abington Memorial have a special responsibility to ensure that controlled substances are used for patient care and not diverted for non-medical uses,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Lappen in a statement. “Diversion leads to illegal sales of addictive prescription drugs that have had a devastating impact on members of our community."

The District Attorney's Office said that the hospital has been cooperating with the DEA since the incident to address deficiencies in the way Abington handles controlled substances in its pharmacies. Some of the planned upgrades include:

• Improvements to AMH’s inpatient pharmacy computer systems; physically enclosing the controlled substances vault
• installing new and additional security cameras and badge swipe access; adding a rotary depositary safe
• adding a new, locked controlled substances and anesthesia carts; retaining outside consultants to review and improve AMH’s controlled substances policies and practices
• purchasing additional intravenous lock boxes; creating a Drug Diversion Prevention & Monitoring Committee and a Task Force for Controlled Substances Infusions-Wasting
• improving inventory practices to account for bulk and unit dose medications broken down individually
• instituting daily, biweekly, weekly, monthly, and yearly controlled substances-diversion monitoring activities
• centralizing the ordering of controlled substances; increasing training for proper controlled substance storage
• tracking serial numbers used in dispensing of controlled substances script pads to nursing units
• revising controlled substances policies and procedures to ensure uniformity and require biannual review

Patch file photo.