Rochester woman sentenced for illegal practice of medicine

Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) – A Rochester woman has admitted to giving a patient morphine even though she was not authorized to do so.

Court documents show Josephina Amaka Okeke, 57, pleaded guilty to unlawful practice of medicine involving a hospital patient.

Under a plea agreement, Okeke admitted to administering the drug even though she knew it was illegal. According to court documents, she said her employer told her to administer the painkiller.

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Police intervened in May 2021 after the resident died in 2020 and the “medical examiner found that the victim had died from the toxic effects of morphine”.

Okeke worked as a home health aide at the facility. The deceased woman was in hospice care and had received a prescription from her doctor to receive a dose of morphine every 3 hours.

According to the criminal complaint, “Okeke gave the victim morphine once every hour for five hours.” A colleague told an investigator that Okeke should give the woman a mouth swab, not morphine. He said he later “saw Okeke rewrite the hours in the book”.

Okeke was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest on Tuesday and ordered to pay $300 in fines and costs. She was also placed on probation for a year.

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