Published: Thursday, December 16, 1999 - Orlando Sentinel
SUIT CALLS HOSPICE DEATHS SLAYINGS
VOLUSIA PROBE FOUND NO WRONGDOING SO FAMILIES SUE
Hospice of Volusia-Flagler administrators and nurses conspired to cover up the slayings of at least two terminally ill patients given lethal doses of morphine, a federal lawsuit contends.
The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Orlando by two families of women who died under hospice care in 1998, also claims that Polk County Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Nelson was a party to the conspiracy. Nelson headed a panel that reviewed the deaths and found nothing suspicious.
In May 1998, Dr. Ronald Reeves - then Volusia County's medical examiner - said that 19 terminally ill patients under the care of Hospice of Volusia-Flagler and Halifax Medical Center died at the hands of their caregivers from morphine overdoses.
Reeves pointed to abnormally high morphine levels found in some of the deceased by a Gainesville laboratory as proof of his assertion. The State Attorney's Office investigated and determined no laws had been broken.
The suit says the civil rights of Mabel Connor and Mary Ellen Comford were violated when they were intentionally given lethal overdoses of morphine at Hospice of Volusia-Flagler.
The attorney representing the Connor and Comford families, Geoffrey Fieger of Michigan, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Fieger is best known for representing assisted-suicide advocate Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
Reeves said he's confident the suit will eventually prove what he has been saying all along about the hospice deaths.
``I know I did nothing but do my job. That's all I've ever said. I feel very strong about the fact that I told the truth,'' Reeves said from his Ormond Beach home.
Hospice spokesman John Evans said he hasn't seen the suit and didn't want to comment specifically on it.
However, echoing previous comments on the matter, he said Wednesday, ``The patients were treated with care and respect that is appropriate for a hospice organization.''
Reeves' allegations of wrongdoing shook the medical community and county government, and sent officials scrambling to counter his claims. He labeled four deaths as homicides, and had just begun his investigation into other cases when county officials suspended him and his assistant, Dr. Robert Davis.
The county then convened a team of seven medical experts, headed by Nelson, to review the 19 deaths in dispute. The team found no wrongdoing and explained that the abnormally high levels of morphine found in the deceased were the result of delayed autopsies that skewed the blood tests.
Reeves and Davis eventually resigned.
In April, the State Attorney's Office concluded that there was no evidence of any caregiver giving overdoses of morphine to terminally ill hospice patients. Two months later, CBS News' Dan Rather took another look at the Comford case and interviewed the deceased's daughter, Cynthia Coolbaugh, along with State Attorney John Tanner for 60 Minutes II.
Coolbaugh, of Port Orange, refused comment when contacted Wednesday.
The suit says Comford, then 78, went to the Hospice Care Center in Port Orange in March 1998 because she had tremors and seizures. She was diagnosed with a mental condition that's a result of cancer. On March 13, 1998, she received morphine for the first time. She died five days later from a massive overdose of morphine, the suit says. An autopsy revealed she didn't have cancer, the suit says.
The suit also says that Mabel Connor died in March 1998 from a massive overdose of morphine. She was 92 at the time of her death.
The suit points to two nurses who cared for Comford and Connor while at hospice, Lisa Wycuff and Cecelia Stevens. Neither could be reached for comment.
Reeves said the actions of additional nurses and hospice administrators will come to light in the months ahead.