PUYALLUP — Authorities say an emergency room nurse suspected of stealing narcotics and exposing patients to hepatitis C at Puyallup’s Good Samaritan Hospital is under arrest and has been booked into jail.
KOMO reports the nurse was arrested Thursday night.
At least two patients at the hospital were infected with the disease, and officials say they believe the nurse was using a portion of patients’ narcotics for her own use, and then injecting those patients with the same needle.
The nurse, who also has hepatitis C, was identified after an investigation found that she was removing higher-than-normal amounts of narcotics from the emergency department’s dispensing system.
The hospital is now testing 2,600 former patients who received injections of narcotic, antihistamines or sedatives at the emergency department while the nurse was on duty between August 4, 2017, and March 23, 2018.
