Johnathan William Click, the lead pharmacy technician for Birmingham’s ContinuumRx, has been accused of stealing opioid medication from IV bags intended for cancer patients experiencing excruciating pain. Prosecutors have accused Click of siphoning morphine and hydromorphone from the vials and replacing the drugs with saline or sterile water.
According to The Washington Post, by the time the desperately needed IV’s reached nurses in hospice care, the pain relievers were diluted to the point of being ineffectual. The vials are connected to a button that allows the cancer patients to self-administer opioid medication if their pain becomes unbearable. However, for many patients, including D.N. (the patient referenced in court documents), the agonizing pain went untreated until their deaths.
Click (30), of Bessemer, Al., plead guilty last week to one count of tampering with a consumer product. He told prosecutors he had a history of drug addiction and began experimenting with morhpine and hydromorhpone a few years ago. In the plea agreement, Click also admitted to secretly drawing out leftover drugs from used vials that were intended for disposal.
Prosecutors claim that Click began tampering with unused vials in late 2014. He would typically pull 20 cubic centimeters of the drug from the vials and replace it with his diluted solution. He would cover his tracks by gluing or taping the cap back on to the vials. As Click was the one technician responsible for opening and mixing the bags, his work went undetected until a coworker witnessed him pulling the liquid drug from the vials. Click was fired from ContinuumRx in September 2016.
Prosecutors say that click acted with “extreme indifference” to the patients and their pain. As a pharmacy technician and an addict, Click was no doubt aware of the drug’s effect on the body and its necessity in treating terminally ill cancer patients. Click even personally answered calls to the pharmacy from various hospice nurses regarding the diluted medication. According to the plea agreement, the pharmacy’s only recommendation was that patients keep pushing their bolus button. In one case, prosecutors allege that Click could hear a patient moaning in agony in the background of a call, but still did nothing.
Click is scheduled for an arraignment in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama later this month. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In a statement made by U.S. attorney Jay E. Town, Town acknowledges the atrocious conduct of Click and its role in the national opioid epidemic. “This defendant was willing to subject terminal cancer patients to intolerable pain in order to feed his own addiction,” Town said. “This is one more aspect of the epidemic problem America has with abuse of prescription opioids.”
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