By Karen Blackledge
The Daily Item
DANVILLE —
A Geisinger Medical Center registered nurse admitted to taking home a patient’s pain medication and using it herself, according to police.
Joan Ann Intintolo, 52, of Bloomsburg, was charged with acquiring Hydromorphone by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery or deception, illegally possessing a controlled substance, refusing to furnish the record of her dispensing the drug to a hospital patient and theft.
Charges were filed by Mahoning Township Police Cpl. Clay Fahringer and Duane Musser, narcotics agent with the state attorney general’s office.
Intintolo was arraigned on the charges June 4 and also waived her right to a preliminary hearing at that time before Montour County District Judge Marvin Shrawder. She is free on her own recognizance.
A hospital spokeswoman said Monday Intintolo is no longer employed by the hospital.
Police and the state attorney general’s office said Intintolo obtained a dose of Hydromorphone, a schedule II controlled substance, from an automated dispensing system at Geisinger. She indicated in the system’s record the drug was to be administered to a patient not assigned to her at the time. At 7:57 p.m. on March 21, she documented in hospital records she administered the drug to the patient.
After Intintolo’s shift was over, supervising charge nurse Melissa Hill determined the patient indicated by Intintolo as having received the drug had not received it, according to the charges.
Intintolo returned to the hospital with the patient’s syringe on March 21 after being contacted and questioned by Hill.
Geisinger security director Scott Bitting and other hospital administrators interviewed Intintolo April 27. She admitted to removing the drug March 21, and taking it home for personal use after indicating in hospital records it had been given to the intended patient, police said.
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