Cancer patients got infections after nurse replaced their drugs with water, feds say

A former nurse is going to prison after messing with medications meant for cancer patients and stealing the drugs to “satisfy her addiction,” federal prosecutors said.

This includes replacing the pain-relieving narcotic Dilaudid with water inside syringes — resulting in waterborne infections at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, according to prosecutors.

Six cancer patients became sick from the syringes contaminated with bacteria, court documents show.

Kelsey A. Mulvey, 30, of Grand Island, New York, was sentenced to three years and one month in prison on Dec. 13 after she was convicted of tampering with a consumer product, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced in a news release.

Mulvey’s attorney Carla Benz told McClatchy News in a statement on Dec. 14 that they are disappointed with the judge’s decision to sentence her to prison.

“Kelsey became a nurse to help people,” Benz said. “Unfortunately, like so many others in this country, she developed a debilitating addiction to opiates. She feels immeasurable remorse and regret for her actions.”

For the past three years, Benz said Mulvey has stayed sober, “worked hard to overcome her addiction and put her life back together.”

But before then, between February and June 2018, investigators said Mulvey stole medications, including Dilaudid, oxycodone and ketamine from the hospital’s dispensing machines, and did not give them to 81 patients, according to court documents. Instead, she is accused of using the medications herself.

Nurse caught Mulvey with bloody syringes

Everywhere Mulvey went while at work, she always had a green canvas bag, according to the complaint. Based on the amount of medications she stole, investigators believe she used this bag to hide the substances inside.

To get the syringes of Dilaudid, which is one brand of hydromorphone, Mulvey searched for patients who were prescribed the drug through the hospital’s database in order to use the dispensing machines, prosecutors said.

On one occasion in June 2018, a fellow nurse saw Mulvey wearing scrubs in the employee locker room when she hadn’t worked the entire day, the complaint states. Mulvey told her co-worker that she wasn’t there to work overtime, but to file paperwork.

Mulvey opened her locker and several used syringes with blood on them fell out and scattered onto the floor, according to the complaint.

The other nurse found it strange that there was blood on the syringes and described Mulvey as acting jumpy, specifically like “a cat on a hot tin roof,” the complaint states.

The next day on June 27, Mulvey was seen at the hospital again, with a backpack on her scheduled vacation day, according to the release. She was caught using a dispensing machine and leaving a medication room where she got hydromorphone, prosecutors said.

“She was subsequently placed on administrative leave and resigned in lieu of termination,” the release said.

Hospital investigates high number of bacterial infections

From June to July 2018, six patients became sick with Sphingomonas paucimobilis bacteremia infections, the complaint states. This was historically unusual for the hospital as only one to two patients become infected with the bacteria each year.

Infections caused by the bacteria can result in septic shock, according to research published in 2010 in the National Library of Medicine.

Ultimately, hospital officials began investigating and they learned syringes of Dilaudud that had been tampered with were the cause of the infections, according to the complaint.

On July 13, Mulvey was accused her of “narcotic diversion” and manipulating the syringes resulting in patients’ bacterial infections, the complaint states.

Ahead of her sentencing, Mulvey’s co-worker, who is the father of her child, wrote a letter to the judge detailing her struggle with drug addiction and requested she be sentenced to home incarceration instead of prison.

“Kelsey lost her home, all of her money, her nursing career, which she loved and worked so hard for, important relationships, our relationship, custody of her only child, visitation, and so much more due to this court case…Sending her to prison for years would be punishing a person that has healed and has been trying to move past her previous crime,” he wrote.

Benz, her attorney, told McClatchy News that Mulvey will “continue to put in the hard work to repay her debt” to the community.

If you or a loved one shows signs of substance use disorder, you can seek help by calling the national hotline at 1-800-662-4357 or find treatment using SAMHSA's online locator.

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