State Investigators Fault Sutter Hospice In Overmedication Of Prominent Calif. Health Care Leader
The California Department of Public Health has issued a report that found Sutter VNA & Hospice provided Jerome Lackner's caregivers with excessive amounts of morphine that may have contributed to his death.
The Sacramento Bee:
Sutter Hospice Faulted In Care Of Former California Health Care Leader Jerome Lackner
A state investigation into the death of Jerome Lackner, an iconoclastic California health care leader who served as a physician for Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr., has found that Sutter VNA & Hospice provided his caregivers with excessive amounts of morphine that, if administered, may have contributed to his death or killed him. The report by California Department of Public Health investigators faults the Sutter hospice for continuing to provide morphine to Lackner’s lay caregivers, despite nurses’ concerns that he was being overmedicated. It notes that during one nine-hour period, he was given morphine at almost double the maximum dosage prescribed. (Piller, 5/12)