Nurse Assistant Caught Illegally Diverting Anesthetics and Doctor Exposed for False Reporting

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on April 29 that it has referred Nurse Assistant A, who habitually administered diverted medical narcotics such as propofol and midazolam at home, and Doctor B, who falsely reported the usage of medical narcotics, to the prosecution on charges of violating the Narcotics Control Act.

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This case began when Seoul Gwangjin Police Station, while investigating the death of Nurse Assistant A, discovered multiple indications of propofol and syringes being administered at A’s residence and subsequently requested the Central Investigation Unit for Offenses Against Public Health at the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to investigate the illegal distribution of medical narcotics.

The dedicated medical narcotics investigation team of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety confirmed that the propofol found at the residence had been supplied to an internal medicine clinic in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, operated by Doctor B, and conducted a compulsory investigation including search and seizure. As a result, it was found that from September 12 last year until mid-January this year-approximately four months-Nurse Assistant A inflated the reported usage of narcotics used for endoscopic examinations at the clinic where A worked, submitted false reports, and diverted 98 vials of propofol and 64 vials of midazolam, among others.

Furthermore, although A was not authorized to handle narcotics, the National Forensic Service’s autopsy revealed that during the period of the crime, A habitually and illegally possessed and administered large quantities of diverted narcotics at home using syringes, leading to A’s death.

The amount of narcotics discovered was sufficient for administering approximately one vial of propofol and 0.5 vials of midazolam daily during the period of the crime, which exceeds the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s safety standards for the medical use of narcotics.

It was also revealed that A illegally diverted and stored at their residence prescription-only injectable drugs such as steroids, anti-inflammatory analgesics, and antibiotics, which require a doctor’s prescription.

Doctor B, as a licensed medical narcotics handler, was obligated to ensure that narcotics were not illegally diverted, administered, or falsely reported, but neglected this responsibility by entrusting all management duties to A. In particular, after learning of A’s death from medical narcotics administration, Doctor B falsely reported the missing narcotics as having been administered to other patients to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in order to account for inventory shortages at the clinic.

Propofol is an intravenous anesthetic used for inducing sleep anesthesia (sedation) or general anesthesia, while midazolam is a sedative used prior to surgeries or examinations. Excessive administration of these drugs can cause serious side effects such as respiratory depression and hypotension and therefore must only be used under continuous medical supervision as psychotropic medicines.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety stated, "We will continue to actively monitor and strictly investigate cases where handlers and workers of medical narcotics such as propofol and midazolam fail to fulfill their management obligations, submit false reports to the Narcotics Integrated Management System (NIMS), or illegally divert narcotics, as well as rigorously crack down on illegal use of narcotics."

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