Meriden Family Sues Nurse For “Potentially Deadly” Prescribing

The family of a Meriden man who died in 2013 at age 56 is suing Derby nurse practitioner Heather Alfonso and the pain clinic where she worked, alleging that her rampant overprescribing of narcotics contributed to his death. Joseph Torchia’s wife and son claim in a lawsuit filed in Waterbury Superior Court that Alfonso, who was recently charged by federal prosecutors with accepting kickbacks from a drug company, prescribed “unlawfully high” doses of narcotics to Torchia for more than a year, ignoring signs that he was suffering from liver cirrhosis, gallbladder disease, internal bleeding and narcotics’ dependency. The suit alleges that Alfonso’s reckless prescribing weakened Torchia’s medical condition, so that his ability to recover from gallbladder surgery on Jan. 14, 2013, was compromised. He died three weeks after that surgery.