State Fines RN For Fentanyl Abuse, Disciplines Four Others

The Board of Examiners for Nursing this week disciplined five nurses for cases involving alcohol or drug abuse, including one nurse who stole Fentanyl patches from nursing home patients. In a consent order with the board, Ashley Dizney of Southington, a registered nurse and an advanced practice registered nurse, agreed to pay a $1,000 fine and be placed on probation for four years for abusing Fentanyl to excess in January 2017. That month, she stole Fentanyl patches from patients in nursing homes in Torrington and Waterbury while working for Connecticut Mental Health Specialists of Farmington, the order said. From 2015 to 2017, Dizney also used alcohol and multiple controlled substances to excess, the order said. She chose not to contest the allegations against her.

State Disciplines Three Nurses, One Former Nurse

The Board of Examiners for Nursing disciplined three nurses and one former nurse last week for cases involving drug use, theft, deceit and mental illness. After a hearing last Wednesday, the board voted to revoke the registered nurse license of Ryan Buynicki of Agawam, Massachusetts, who, records show, stole Dilaudid in 2015 while working at Osborn Correctional Center in Somers. Buynicki also stole controlled substances from five patients in the prison infirmary in 2015 and falsified controlled substance records, according to the statement of charges against him by the state Department of Public Health. The board also found that his use of controlled substances was affecting his ability to practice a nurse, the statement said. The board issued a cease and desist order against Lisa Piatak of Shelton to stop practicing nursing without a license.

Nursing Board Disciplines Four Nurses

The state Board of Examiners for Nursing has disciplined four nurses, including three in cases involving alcohol or drugs. The board on July 19 temporarily suspended the registered nurse license of Fernando Roldan of Hartford for failing to comply with the terms of a four-year probation, including attending therapy or support group sessions and submitting drug or alcohol test results, state Department of Public Health (DPH) records show. DPH records show that Roldan admitted that he abused alcohol between 2010 and 2014. The board’s April memorandum of decision said that Roldan was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol for the third time in 2013 and spent a year in prison. It also said he was fired from his job at Connecticut Valley Hospital’s Whiting Forensic Institute, where he had worked for 20 years, for using unreasonable force during a restraint of a patient.

Ansonia Nurse Accused Of Murder Gets Another Chance To Keep License

A licensed practical nurse from Ansonia who is accused of murdering an Eastern Connecticut State University student will get another chance to keep his nursing license. Last week, the Board of Examiners for Nursing vacated a decision it made in June to revoke the license of Jermaine V. Richards, 34, after Richards, who is being held on a $500,000 bond at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, requested a continuance on a hearing he had been unable to attend in June. The board on July 19 granted his request for the continuance. Richards is facing charges that he was involved in a fight with a visitor in a patient’s home. In June, the board had concluded after the hearing that he slept while on duty at a patient’s home, misrepresented himself as a registered nurse, violated the patient’s privacy by bringing a visitor to the home and then had a physical altercation with the visitor, state records show.

Ansonia Nurse Accused Of Murder Loses License

A licensed practical nurse from Ansonia who is accused of murdering an Eastern Connecticut State University student has lost his nursing license in an unrelated case involving a fight he had with a visitor in a patient’s home. The Board of Examiners for Nursing voted Wednesday to revoke the license of Jermaine V. Richards, 34, after holding a hearing. Richards did not attend the hearing because he is being held on a $500,000 bond at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers on a charge that he murdered his is ex-girlfriend, Alyssiah Wiley, 20, of West Haven in 2013. After an extensive search, her dismembered body was found in Trumbull in May 2013, less than two miles from Richards’ home, the Connecticut Post has reported. Richards, who denied the nursing charges in a letter to the state Department of Public Health in December, was not represented by a lawyer at the hearing.

State Disciplines Seven Nurses

The Board of Examiners for Nursing today disciplined seven nurses, including five for abusing drugs or alcohol. The board members also recommended that the state Department of Public Health hold a hearing in the case of Mary Howe of Griswold, a registered nurse who has been accused of inappropriate care of an inmate at York Correctional Institution in Niantic. DPH records show that on Nov. 1, 2014, the inmate bumped her head against a wall and fell out of a wheelchair and suffered a serious brain injury while in the prison medical unit. The inmate was hospitalized in critical care until February 2015 and remains in a long-term care facility, records show.

State Disciplines Six Nurses

The state Board of Examiners for Nursing disciplined six nurses this week, including several cases of nurses who abused drugs or alcohol. On Wednesday, the board revoked the license of Michelle Murphy, a registered nurse from Longmeadow, Massachusetts, for violating an earlier probation by not submitting drug test results to the state Department of Public Health, records show. In April, the board had placed her on probation for two years based on findings that she took the painkillers fentanyl and Dilaudid for her own use and abused controlled substances to excess, records show. The board also revoked the license of licensed practical nurse Adam Burr of New Britain, who was intoxicated while working for PSA Healthcare of Plainville doing care in a patient’s home, state records show. The board found that Burr’s abuse of alcohol and an emotional disorder or mental illness he has suffered from since 2013 were affecting his ability to practice nursing.

State Disciplines Four Nurses

The Board of Examiners for Nursing on Wednesday disciplined four nurses, including three for their abuse of alcohol or drugs. The board suspended the registered nursing license of Lori Riley of Sharon after finding that she posed a clear and immediate danger to the public. Records show that in 2015, while working for All About You Homecare in Torrington, she took Percocet meant for a patient, replaced it with Tylenol and falsified the patient’s medical record. From 2014 to 2016, Riley abused Percocet, Oxycodone and Vicodin, records show. This past January, she signed a plan to enter a confidential rehabilitation program, but records show she failed to comply with the program or begin outpatient treatment for substance abuse.

Vinal Tech’s LPN Program Faces Closure

The licensed practical nursing program at Vinal Technical High School in Middletown is in danger of closing because too few graduates have been passing the LPN licensing exam. Vinal Tech’s passing rate has been rising since it was 53 percent in 2012, but it remained at only 75 percent May 1 and Oct. 1, 2015, state records show. To keep its approval from the state Board of Examiners for Nursing, the program must have a passing rate of at least 80 percent among students taking the test for the first time after graduation. Due to the 75 percent passing rate, the nursing board voted unanimously Oct.

High-Prescribing Nurse Surrenders Drug Licenses

A Derby nurse practitioner whose prolific prescribing of potent narcotics was the subject of a February story by C-HIT has surrendered her state and federal licenses to prescribe controlled substances and is the subject of an “open investigation” by the state health department, officials said Monday. Heather Alfonso, an advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) at the Comprehensive Pain & Headache Treatment Centers, LLC, in Derby, surrendered her controlled substance registration after a recent probe by the Drug Control Division of the Department of Consumer Protection, a spokeswoman for the department confirmed. “The controlled substance registration of this provider has been turned in,” said the spokeswoman, Claudette Carveth. She said the agency had no further comment. Meanwhile, William Gerrish, a spokesman for the Department of Public Health, said his agency has an ongoing investigation into Alfonso’s APRN license, which is separate from her prescribing registration.