A 73-year old doctor from Florida has been arrested in connection with the deaths of four former patients.
Boynton Beach physician Peter Katz had already been arrested in April. According to the Sun-Sentinel, he’d been prescribing medication with “limited to no exam, no patient files and no medical history.”
Sometimes Katz would try fulfilling his role outside office hours – occasionally working from his office after closing, and even signing prescription requests from within his own home.
The Sun-Sentinel reports the first victim of Katz’s purported negligence as 49-year old “K.C.,” who passed away in 2015. K.C. had spent days suffering from nausea and fits of vomiting before being pronounced dead upon arrival at an area hospital.
K.C. – like the other three patients who died on Katz’s watch – died from “multiple drug intoxication.” She had over half a dozen legal and illicit substances in her body, which were discovered upon autopsy.
The woman was a known drug user and being treated for opioid dependence and high blood pressure.
But K.C.’s medical records didn’t show a diagnosis or treatment for the hypertension or drug abuse.
But the allegations stacked up against the doctor go beyond poor file-keeping and medical mismanagement.
WPBF reports that another of Katz’s deceased clients, known as M.V.,-C, told her mother the reason she went to see the physician – because she’d be able to get her drug of choice in exchange for cash.
Not long after, in 2016, M.V.,-C came to Katz saying she didn’t have a place to live. The doctor asked the 27-year old woman to move in with him, sparking a sexual relationship.
When the young woman died from multiple drug interactions, her mother opened a storage unit containing multiple, blank prescription pads, including one that Katz had signed empty.
Katz apparently had a reputation as being a physician who’d give drugs to addicts under-the-table and in exchange for cash.
He was arrested in April after a Drug Enforcement Agency officer, posing as an addict, arrived to his Boynton Beach residence requesting controlled substances.
Katz has since had his medical license suspended and is awaiting trial.
Sources
Boynton Beach doctor’s license suspended over 4 patient deaths
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