In order to resolve claims that a nurse at Yale University’s reproductive clinic routinely interfered with egg retrieval procedures by substituting saline for patients’ anesthetic, the university has agreed to pay a “substantial” amount.
Plaintiff Soryorelis Henry stated in a statement that “what should have been a hopeful and joyous time […] turned into a traumatic experience.” “What we went through should never have to be endured by anyone. It is my goal that this case prompts systemic adjustments so that no other patient goes through this kind of anguish.
The New York Times reports that the settlement’s sum is still unknown. The women’s lawyers had requested roughly $2 million in damages for each plaintiff in court documents from the previous year. According to Yale spokesperson Karen Peart, “this mutual agreement allows both parties to move forward and begin healing.”
Each plaintiff is said to have undergone “painful and invasive procedures for in vitro fertilization” at the Yale University Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility facility located in Orange, Connecticut, according to the Associated Press. Instead of receiving fentanyl as part of their preparation for the procedure, they were given saline, which is a solution made up of just salt and water.
The women all told the staff that they were in excruciating agony both during and after the surgeries, but they were not given any attention. Subsequently, police investigators discovered that saline had contaminated 75% of all fentanyl administered to patients between June 2020 and October 2020. After being found guilty of tampering with consumer products, Donna Monticone, a nurse who is no longer employed by Yale, was given multiple sentences of “four weekends in prison, three months of home confinement, and three years of supervised release.”
The Associated Press claims that Monticone fed her addiction with the pilfered fentanyl. She has since expressed regret to the patients.
The victims’ attorneys at the fertility clinic assert that Monticone had probably been using fentanyl for a longer time and that no one at the clinic tried to figure out why so many women were complaining of excruciating pain during their procedures over a two-year period.
The victims’ attorneys at the fertility clinic assert that Monticone had probably been using fentanyl for a longer time and that no one at the clinic tried to figure out why so many women were complaining of excruciating pain during their procedures over a two-year period.
Attorney Joshua Koskoff said that Yale University medical staff disregarded the agonized cries of the ladies receiving these procedures. And for more than two years, a pretty basic question went unasked. How come? Why, for a process that Yale University itself advertised as causing little to no difficulty, were so many strangers to one another going through this unbearable, torture-like pain?
