Yale reached a confidential settlement with 150 fertility clinic patients, who were administered saline instead of a painkilling drug after the University failed to safeguard its fentanyl supply.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021, after women who had undergone in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a treatment that fertilizes collected eggs with sperm in a laboratory, reported feeling "excruciating pain" at the Yale Fertility Center.
The patients did not know it then, but they had been administered saline water instead of fentanyl, a painkilling drug. A Yale nurse, Donna Moticone, later admitted to stealing fentanyl for personal use and replacing it with saline in vials.
Flanked by three victims of fentanyl diversion at the Omni Hotel New Haven, attorneys Josh Koskoff and Kelly Fitzpatrick announced that Yale had reached a confidential settlement with the victims in the lawsuit against the Yale Fertility Center and Yale Reproductive Endocrinology.
"These women did something very difficult, they stepped forward," Koskoff told the News. "[The women] filed many lawsuits in the hopes that it would force Yale University to hear them."
The lawsuit alleged medical assault and battery, both violations of civil law. The suit claims that hundreds of patients could have been administered saline instead of fentanyl and that in over 75 percent of the treatments that involved fentanyl from June 2020 to October 2020, the painkiller could have been replaced with saline. More than 175 vials of fentanyl were stored unsupervised and unprotected at the clinic.
After Monticone's fentanyl diversion was uncovered, the Drug Enforcement Agency opened an investigation and found that Yale failed to safeguard its fentanyl supply, violating the Controlled Substances Act, which allowed the fertility clinic's fentanyl supply to be tampered with and stolen.
Due to its violation of state and federal public health laws, Yale University, on behalf of Yale Medicine and the Yale Fertility Center, agreed to pay a total of $308,250 in a civil settlement agreement with the Department of Justice in October 2022.
Since the DOJ settlement, "Yale Medicine has instituted many new measures to ensure we have the most rigorous processes, procedures and safeguards in place," University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote to the News.
Peart listed additional staff training and supervision as well as enhanced management systems and clinical protocols as some of the measures installed.
A central component of IVF is egg extraction, which involves inserting a long needle through the vaginal wall and into the ovaries. The physician then inserts the needle into a follicle that contains an egg, pulling the egg and surrounding fluid into the needle.
"I tried staying relaxed, but it was extremely short-lived. The pain medication didn't seem to work. I was awake for the entire procedure," Angela Cortese, one of the victims, said at the press conference. "I felt every pinch and needle stick."
Soryorelis Henry, another victim, told the News that she has struggled with PTSD resulting from extreme pain ever since.
"Five years ago, my husband and I entered what should have been a hopeful and joyous time," Henry said. "Instead, it turned into a traumatic experience due to the organization's negligence. I was not provided the pain medication I was supposed to receive, and as a result, I endured excruciating pain throughout the entire procedure. My cries for help were ignored, despite me visibly crying."
When patients first notified the staff of the abnormal levels of pain after what they thought was fentanyl administration, their complaints were disregarded. Koskoff claimed that the patients were even presented with bogus medical records that were pre-populated and showed pain levels of zero out of 10.
Koskoff said that Yale initially offered to compensate the patients by offering them a free blood test to determine if any of the women had suffered from infection. He added, however, that "Yale deserves some credit" for agreeing to a "substantial" settlement.
Moticone has surrendered her nursing license and is no longer employed by Yale.
"It's hard to think of how many countless victims there are, and this further exemplifies a system where women's voices don't seem to matter," Shannon Garfield, another victim, told the News. "This settlement is Yale acknowledging that they fail to treat their patients with compassion and dignity."