A Washington Boro woman was arrested by state agents Wednesday for allegedly pocketing pain killers while working as a nurse at Lancaster General Hospital.

Trudy L. Nordsick, 39, of 18 Second St., who no longer works at the hospital, was charged by agents of the state Attorney General's Office with possession of a controlled substance and obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation.

Nordsick was confronted by hospital officials in December 2005, and she admitting taking the OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet tablets, according to court documents.

After a lengthy investigation, charges were filed Wednesday morning when Nordsick, a registered nurse, surrendered to authorities. District Judge Richard Simms released her pending a preliminary hearing.

This morning, Nordsick's defense attorney, Robert Reese, said Nordsick "denies any criminal wrong-doing of any type at the hospital and we will defend these charges to the fullest extent of the law."

According to the attorney general's affidavit of probable cause for her arrest, Nordsick admitted taking the pills when hospital officials confronted her, but maintained that she "never withheld medication from a patient."

In the course of her duties, Nordsick reportedly told hospital officials, "if a patient had pain she would remove two tablets" from the medication dispensing unit, give "the patient one tablet and keep one tablet for herself," according to the affidavit.

Nordsick reportedly told her supervisors that although her actions continued for more than a year, and "she admitted having a drug problem...she did not feel she had an addiction to pain medication," according to the affidavit.

"Abusing prescription drugs does not have the same social stigma as illegal drug abuse," state Attorney General Tom Cornet said in a prepared statement today, "but these drugs can be just as deadly as heroin or cocaine, and the impact of addiction, crime and other related problems can be just as harmful."

"We, as a society, hold health care professionals to a much higher standard when it comes to the diversion of prescription medicine," Corbett said, "because we entrust them with our care."

"Patient safety is of the utmost importance to us," Lancaster General Hospital spokesman John Lines said today. "There was no evidence that there was any harm to any patient or employee related to her conduct."

"We have a zero tolerance for illegal drug use and theft from our facility," Lines added. "We are cooperating fully, and continue to do so, with the Attorney General's Office."

"Health care is a very human industry," Lines added. The hospital does what it can to ensure "safe and accurate medication administration, but if someone is focused on circumventing those measures, situations like this occur. Eventually they will be caught."

According to the Attorney General's Office, Nordsick allegedly took the medication between September and December 2005.

The Attorney General's Office was notified by hospital officials of a pain-killer problem in December 2005, but investigators said the hospital provided no names of suspected employees.

After looking into the problem for more than one year, attorney general spokesman Kevin Harley said today, investigators learned about Nordsick in March 2007.

The discrepancies in the medicine documentation were explained by providing pain medication to a patient who wasn't in pain, providing pain medication too soon as well as providing pain medication to patients when other nurses were not giving pain medication to the same patient, according to the affidavit.

Wednesday's arrest comes on the heels of a similar, but different, arrest by the Attorney General's Office involving alleged misuse of drugs by a medical professional.

Last month, agents arrested a radiology technician for allegedly taking partially empty vials from operating room medical waste containers to obtain the leftover narcotics.

Lee M. Gilbert, 25, of York, would inject the drugs, according to court documents, and then hide the empty vials above the ceiling tiles.

Gilbert was fired, for performance reasons, from Lancaster General Hospital in December 2005, but was working part-time at Heart of Lancaster Regional Medical Center in Warwick Township.

Investigators said Gilbert was taking the leftover vials from both hospitals, returning to Lancaster General Hospital's operating room dressed in scrubs until March 2007.

When maintenance workers found the vials during a routine check at Lancaster General Hospital, an investigation was begun. State agents asked Heart to search its ceiling and more empty vials were found.

CONTACT US: jkelley@LNPnews.com or 481-6026