A Berkley nurse pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to tampering with fentanyl intended for patients at a hospital’s post-surgery recovery unit and an outpatient vascular surgery center. Hugo Vieira, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a consumer product. From December 2018 to January 2019, while working at a Massachusetts hospital and an outpatient vascular surgery center, Vieira removed fentanyl from vials meant for patients who were undergoing surgery or recovering from surgery. To conceal his conduct, Vieira replaced the diverted fentanyl with saline. Sixty tampered vials were identified at the vascular surgery center and two vials at the hospital post-surgery recovery unit. Those vials contained only 1.3–7% of the declared concentration of fentanyl citrate.
