Incarceration
Albany County inmate’s daughter sues, says mother given fatal medicine dose
Lawsuit says jail medical staff committed error that cost inmate her life.
A Cohoes woman who was found dead in an Albany County jail cell last summer died after a transcription error caused jail medical staff to give her a lethal dose of medication, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
Jessica Falco, 36, was found dead in her cell July 14, 2018. Her daughter filed a lawsuit on Oct. 11 against Albany County, the county’s Mental Health Department, CFG Health Systems and the jail staff who oversaw Falco’s care.
Falco was incarcerated March 7, 2018, and was serving a one-year sentence for probation violation from the town of Colonie and city of Cohoes courts.
The lawsuit describes several alleged mistakes in medical treatment given to Falco at the jail — including not providing adequate care even after an error in dosage was discovered when Falco was in severe medical distress.
CFG did not immediately return a call for comment. Albany County referred questions to Sheriff Craig Apple. While neither he nor his office is named in the lawsuit, his office oversees the jail’s operations.
Apple said he learned of the lawsuit Monday, but hadn’t seen it. “I can say that CFG has done an outstanding job making sure the inmates receive a high level of care,” he said.
When she entered the county jail, Falco was struggling with substance abuse issues as well as mental health issues. Jail staff prescribed her two medications: buprenorphine, which is an opioid medication used to treat opioid addiction, and bupropion, which is an anti-depressant.
Those two medications are not supposed to be mixed and individuals who are prescribed both are supposed to be closely monitored, especially if they have liver problems, according to the lawsuit. Falco suffered from chronic hepatitis.
“Those two medicines are known to react with each other and she died,” said the family’s attorney, Bob Keach, in an interview.
Falco also was prescribed trazodone, an antidepressant.
The medical examiner who performed Falco’s autopsy blamed bupropion, trazodone and buprenorphine for Falco’s death, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also detailed another error that ultimately caused Falco’s death. On July 10, four days before jail staff found her body, Falco complained of increased mental distress after receiving upsetting news. A nurse practitioner at the jail instructed one of the jail nurses to increase Falco’s bupropion dosage to 30 milligrams three times a day.
Because of a transcription error, the dosage was bumped to 60 milligrams three times a day. The increase caused Falco to suffer from extreme medical symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, and weakness, according to the lawsuit.
On July 13, another nurse discovered the error and reported it to the nurse practitioner and the jail’s health services administrator.
According to the lawsuit, the nurse practitioner responded by telling the nurse to withhold Falco’s nightly dose of bupropion and that she would evaluate her in the morning. Falco was not evaluated by jail staff and was ignored, despite being in medical distress, according to the lawsuit.
“This was not only a clear violation of the standard of care, but deliberately indifferent to Ms. Falco’s serious medical needs, especially given her compromised liver” from hepatitis, Keach said in the lawsuit. Falco was found dead the next morning. “It’s right there in black and white: They knew there was a transcription error, as did the Albany County Mental Health Center,” Keach said.
Keach said on Monday that he planned on amending the lawsuit to sue the county for hiring CFG Health Systems.
CFG has been sued multiple times in New Jersey for allegedly causing or failing to prevent inmate deaths. Hudson County, New Jersey, government officials terminated the company’s contract in March 2018 after six inmates died within two years at the county jail.
The company also provides health care at the Schenectady and Warren county jails.