HALL COUNTY, Ga. — A nurse is accused of writing $75,000 worth of fake prescriptions. Now, police are trying to sort out the impact on hospice patients.
Channel 2’s Lori Wilson was in Hall County as police took the nurse into custody Friday.
Police tell Wilson that Roseanne Brandsma, 52, spent months writing thousands of dollars of fake prescriptions for hospice patients, then covered her tracks.
Channel 2 learned exclusively Friday that Brandsma was arrested for prescription fraud at the time she was responsible for picking up prescriptions for hospice patients.
“For her, it was an easy way to have access to the narcotics,”Gainesville Police Sgt. Lt. Andy Smith said.
Police say she had access to the computer system at Kindred Hospice in Gainesville. They say for seven months, she sent fake prescriptions to the pharmacy, and once they were filled, would erase them from the kindred computer system.
“She would go pick up the prescriptions, and sometimes, she may administer one to two pills, sometimes she may just keep them all and the patient never got any of the medication,” Smith said.
What she was doing with the drugs remains part of the investigation.
“At this point, we don’t know if she was selling or if she has an opioid problem,” Smith said.
Wilson reached out to Kindred Friday, who sent Wilson a statement that said, in part:
"We discovered that something was amiss when our internal controls alerted us that bogus prescriptions were being filled in our patient's names. We immediately launched an investigation and, when Ms. Brandsma refused to cooperate with that inquiry, we terminated her and notified law enforcement and the board of nursing."
Once police told the public they were looking for Brandsma, the tips poured in.
“(We were) able to locate her within the city limits and make a traffic stop and place her into custody,” Smith said.
All of the prescriptions were for opioids.
Brandsma is charged with more than 50 counts of prescription forgery and computer trespassing.
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