Who steals old pain medication from a hospice patient? A sheriff’s office has an answer
A Ring camera installed in a hospice patient’s room to watch caregivers spotted a licensed practical nurse helping herself to fentanyl and hydrocodone, a Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrest report says.
Tammy Konkol-Townsend of Lakeland was arrested on two counts of theft of a controlled substance and two counts of possession of a drug without a prescription. She was released after posting $4,000 bond. Prosecutors have charged her only with the two theft counts.
That’s still enough for the Florida Department of Health to slap an emergency restriction order (ERO) on Konkol-Townsend’s licenses as a licensed practical nurse and radiologic technician. She can’t practice “in an environment where she has access to controlled substances.”
According to the ERO and the arrest report, Good Shepherd Hospice assigned Konkol-Townsend to provide in-home care for patient ISB, who had stage IV brain cancer. Konkol-Townsend began Oct. 2. ISB’s son, JB, installed a Ring security camera in the room.
JB told the Polk County Sheriff’s Office he went to the video after there was a 3 a.m. delivery of medication. He didn’t think anything of it at the time, he said, because he was foggy at that 3 a.m. hour. When he thought about it clearly on Oct. 4, JB said he realized there should have been no reason for another medication delivery because the previous hospice worker had just ordered new medication.
What JB said the video showed: Konkol-Townsend raiding a box of pills no longer to be used, counting out pills in a pill bottle cap, then putting them into her pocket. And he saw her doing the same with another bottle.
When he checked, JB said the hydrocodone bottle that had almost 90 pills now had 18. And the bottle with fentanyl that proved too strong for his mother had only one pill instead of five.
The arrest report says JB took the video to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, which took the video to Good Shepherd Hospice.
Good Shepherd Hospice fired Konkol-Townsend.
When Konkol-Townsend was shown the video by a PCSO detective, the report says, she told the detective she had a lawyer even before he informed her she had the right to remain silent.
