HEALTH Director Suspends License of South County Hospital RN

Department of Health (HEALTH) Director Michael D. Fine, recently enforced the abrupt license suspension of Registered Nurse (RN), Anthony Amaral, following concerns regarding his conduct with prescription drugs.

According to Fine's suspension order, Amaral was employed at and resigned from three area hospitals in 2013, including South County Hospital in Wakefield, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island in Pawtucket and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence. At all three places of employment, Amaral was approached about his questionable use of the Pyxis MedStation system, an automated supply cabinet used to accurately dispense medications.

A review of Amaral's Pyxis cabinet use at South County Hospital revealed several instances in which he pulled medications from the unit, but then waited an unusually long period of time before administering them to a patient. There were also two instances where Amaral did not note medication administration for narcotics that he pulled from the automated system.

Documents provided by HEALTH show that on several occasions while he was employed at Memorial Hospital, Amaral removed narcotics from the system that had not been ordered by a subscriber, and again failed to document administering them.

Amaral's Pyxis records from Our Lady of Fatima Hospital revealed multiple instances in which he opened the cabinet to pull the potent painkiller Dilaudid - a derivative of Morphine - then canceled the drug. A subsequent investigation showed that several tubes of Dilaudid had been tampered with and diluted.

At each hospital, when asked to speak with a supervisor about the Pyxis irregularities, Amaral resigned his position.

Based upon the HEALTH findings, Fine ordered the suspension of Amaral's RN license on July 2,  declaring that its continuation would constitute "an immediate danger to the public".