A Haverhill nurse pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston to tampering with patients’ morphine. Brianna Duffy, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a consumer product and one count of acquiring a controlled substance by fraud or deception. On March 17 and 18, 2019, while working as a registered nurse at a facility in Danvers, Duffy tampered with morphine sulfate prescribed to an 89-year old hospice patient. In an attempt to avoid detection, she replaced the extracted medication with another liquid, diluting the morphine to just 26% of the prescribed concentration. The hospice patient received the diluted morphine and suffered unnecessary pain. From December 2016 until July 2017, while working as a registered nurse at a facility in Amesbury, Duffy diverted morphine from two bottles that were prescribed to a 68-year old patient. Duffy removed morphine from the bottles and diluted the remaining morphine with another liquid, leaving only 1.2%–2.5% of the declared concentration of morphine. Duffy tested positive for morphine on July 18, 2017.
