A nurse admitted to causing her patients 'torturous pain'. She went to jail for just 8 days.

Connecticut woman Laura Czar had already faced a harrowing breast cancer diagnosis when she decided to undergo IVF to make her lifelong dream of motherhood a reality. Her sister-in-law had been through IVF for years, assuring her she wouldn't feel a thing during the egg retrieval – a procedure which typically takes 15 minutes.

But Laura knew something was wrong as soon as the procedure was underway. She could feel a "horrible, gut-wrenching pain" that she alerted staff to immediately. 

"Picture a large needle being inserted into your vagina through your vaginal wall and into the ovaries. That's done to pull out every egg," Laura told ELLE. "After the procedure was over, I thought to myself: Well, I guess that's just the way it is?"

Though she doubted herself, Laura's instincts were right. A Department of Justice investigation found that Laura was one of 200 women who underwent invasive fertility treatments without the adequate medication over the course of five months in 2020. Unbeknownst to them, and the clinical staff at the Yale Fertility Center in New Haven, Connecticut, they had been given saline rather than the expected dose of pain medication Fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Watch: Former Nurse Donna Monticone pleads guilty for taking fentanyl at infertility centre. Post continues after video.

Donna Monticone, a nurse at Yale Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility clinic in nearby Orange, had turned to drugs to cope through a difficult divorce. Her addiction saw her steal vials of the painkiller fentanyl from storage areas at work, and then reinject saline – a mix of salt and water – to conceal any missing contents. 

The five-part podcast The Retrievals, from Serial and The New York Times, looks into the devastating effects that the disgraced nurse's actions had on the women whose only goal was to start a family.

Prosecutors stated that 75 per cent of the fentanyl given to patients at the Yale clinic from June to October in 2020 was mixed with useless saline. Overall, 175 vials were tampered with at the New Haven and Orange fertility clinics.

One anonymous patient, herself a physician, recounts her trauma from undergoing an egg harvesting procedure in mid 2020.

"It made me scream. I remember screaming in the middle of the procedure from pain... I couldn't tolerate it," she said.

US attorney Josh Koskoff represented four female victims, who he said felt "betrayed" when their complaints of pain were initially "dismissed" by staff at Yale Fertility.

"How is it that after the first complaint of pain they didn't do a thorough investigation? How was this allowed to go on for as long as it apparently did?" Koskoff added.

One patient recalled asking for more medication, only to be told they'd been given the maximum dosage. Other patients echo Koskoff's anger that they were dismissed, told to "calm down" or that they were overreacting to the situation. 

Perhaps the coldest response was when one patient was told, "What's the big deal? You got pregnant."

Victoria Seidl was one of the women who finally received some validation for her pain when she opened a letter from the Department of Justice outlining she had been a victim of a federal crime.

The embryo she'd had implanted during an IVF procedure in 2020 didn't lead to a pregnancy, and it also left her in unnecessary pain. "This is something you never think that's going to happen to you and something that almost feels like something was taken from you," Victoria said.

In March 2021, the disgraced nurse pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a consumer product. Yet despite the harm she knowingly inflicted on so many women, Monticone was sentenced to an astonishing eight days in prison for her crimes.

It was reported that Monticone had been facing a maximum of 10 years in prison for tampering with drugs, but in the end, got away with the light jail sentence — plus three months of home confinement and three years of supervised release — due to her lack of criminal record prior. U.S. District Court Judge Janet C. Hall also took into account Monticone's struggles with her divorce and a years-long custody battle.

Of her crimes, Monticone, 49, said, "My regret and shame runs deep. Every day, I wish I could turn back time."

She surrendered her nursing licence and attended rehab to treat her addictions. In a statement, Yale said the fertility centre was "changing procedures, record keeping, and (drug) storage" to prevent a repeat of the horrible crime. 

In October 2022, the prestigious university also made an agreement with the federal government to pay just over US$300,000 in settlements to resolve claims they had violated provisions of the Controlled Substances Act.

But for women whose only goal was to experience the joy of motherhood and had turned to the fertility clinic to make that happen, the nurse's punishment simply wasn't enough. "What should have been a time of hope for these women and their families became one of unimaginable suffering," attorney Koskoff said. 

Feature Image: Getty (stock image).

Do you have any Streaming Video Services in your household? e.g. Netflix, Binge, etc. We want to hear from you! Take our survey now to go in the running to win a $50 gift voucher.