A box containing packages of fentanyl designated for a deceased nursing home resident was anonymously mailed to a reporter last week.
Chicago’s ABC7 investigative reporter Chuck Goudie said he received a package containing the drugs, with no identification or return address except a postmark indicating it was sent from a Chicago suburb.
Goudie’s team traced the prescriptions back to a nursing home resident who died in February, shortly after the prescription was filled. The prescription packets were also labeled with the name of the resident’s physician and indicated they had been prescribed at Westchester Health and Rehabilitation Center in Westchester, IL.
Inside the package was also a handwritten note claiming the drugs “lay around like candy,” at the nursing home, ABC7 reported on Thursday.
A representative for Westchester told McKnight’s on Friday that the facility was aware of the package. The Illinois Department of Public Health came to the facility to investigate but “there were no findings,” according to Westchester.
The representative added that facility officials have “absolutely” no idea who could have sent the anonymous package.
The prescribing physician, Emmanuel Paintsil, M.D., told ABC7 that the box could’ve been dropped and picked up by someone who then sent it to the newsroom. Refuting the claims that fentanyl, a lays around the facility “like candy,” Paintsil told the station Westchester has protocols to secure medications. The locks on the facility’s medication carts were also updated in the wake of the incident, the facility’s pharmacy told ABC7.
