By Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 18, 2024

An Iowa hospital nurse has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that she deliberately overdosed patients with medications.

Rachel Faith Martinez, 36, of Peterson, is charged with six criminal violations related to her work at Clay County’s Spencer Hospital in late 2022.

The charges include two felony counts of obtaining a prescription drug by deceit and four counts of wanton neglect of a dependent adult by a caretaker, a serious misdemeanor.

Martinez has pleaded not guilty to each of the charges.

According to prosecutors, Martinez was working as a nurse at Spencer Hospital on Nov. 9, 2022, and was caring for a patient who was to receive hydrocodone once every four hours. Martinez allegedly provided the drug at 11:04 a.m., 12:39 p.m., and 3:47 p.m. The same patient was to be given Tramadol once every six hours, although Martinez allegedly administered the drug at 7:12 a.m., 9:04 a.m., 12:33 p.m. and 1:39 p.m.

In December 2022, Martinez was assigned to care for a patient being treated for an allergic reaction related to cancer treatment. Prosecutors allege that Martinez told a fellow nurse the patient was being “annoying” and was using their call light to summon assistance, and so she administered the patient an unprescribed dose of Benadryl to put them to sleep.

A few weeks earlier, Martinez had been assigned a different patient who was to receive one dose of hydrocodone every four hours. According to prosecutors, she instead administered two doses within the four-hour timeframe and then administered Zofran, morphine and Tramadol. “All of these extra narcotics, with the hydrocodone, would have further overdosed” the patient, prosecutors allege.

A few days before that incident, Martinez was assigned to care for a patient who was prescribed 3 milligrams of melatonin at bedtime. Martinez is accused of providing 6 milligrams.

On two other occasions,  prosecutors allege, Martinez took, for her own use, Tramadol and hydrocodone prescribed for patients of the hospital.

A pretrial conference in the case is scheduled for April 16.

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Deputy Editor Clark Kauffman has worked during the past 30 years as both an investigative reporter and editorial writer at two of Iowa’s largest newspapers, the Des Moines Register and the Quad-City Times. He has won numerous state and national awards for reporting and editorial writing.

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