A registered nurse who worked at Cheshire Medical Center had his license suspended in January for allegedly stealing prescription opioids, including fentanyl, state regulators said. This comes about a year-and-a-half after a federal investigation found 21 gallons of fentanyl solution were lost or unaccounted for at the Keene, N.H., hospital over a two-year span.
In June 2023, the hospital was ordered to pay a $2 million fine and adhere to a corrective action plan with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for three years.
Steven Finnell, a registered nurse, is accused of stealing drugs that were meant for patients from June 2024 until he was discovered on Jan. 16, according to a Jan. 23 order of emergency license suspension from the state board of nursing.
The Jan. 23 suspension order alleges Finnell admitted to taking for his personal use an unknown number of controlled substances, including the opiates fentanyl, morphine, hydromorphone and oxycodone.
Finnell told investigators that he used oral opiates and intravenous medications at home and at work while caring for patients, per the documents.
Cheshire Medical Center also suspended Finnell from employment, the order says.
According to the order, Finnell said he documented administering a drug to a patient but instead gave them a partial dose or saline.
When reached by phone Thursday, Finnell declined to discuss the specifics of the case.
“We’re going through proper channels and everything is under investigation,” he said. Finnell said he is not “at liberty to discuss” the proceedings and declined to say if he’d hired a lawyer.
Representatives from the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification (OPLC), which oversees the board of nursing, were not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon. A spokesperson from Cheshire Medical Center Thursday did not immediately respond to an email and phone call seeking comment.
Keene police Sgt. Luke Antin said police did not have any information to share on the case.
In February 2022, an ICU nurse who worked at Cheshire Medical Center reported that she had stolen hundreds of bags of fentanyl solution from the hospital, according to documents from the OPLC. The nurse died a month later, and even after remedial measures were put in place, drugs still went missing, the documents said.
The OPLC disciplined three Cheshire Medical Center employees in connection with the drug loss.
The Keene hospital had previously cited “nurses failing to sufficiently document the administration or waste of fentanyl,” in explaining the drug loss, according to documents from the OPLC. Those documents also note that a surge in COVID-19 patients in the winter of 2021 created unprecedented challenges for operating the hospital’s pharmacy.
The DEA began an audit in April 2022. The federal agency’s investigation found deficiencies in Cheshire Medical Center’s recordkeeping, failure to regularly review reports and that the hospital did not enforce some controlled-substance security policies. The DEA then required, in June 2023, a three-year corrective action plan. The June settlement also required Cheshire Medical Center to pay a $2 million fine.
The January emergency order says Finnell license is suspended pending a follow-up emergency hearing. A hearing was scheduled for Feb. 3, but, according to the board’s calendar, that meeting was canceled.
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