Woman Posing as Nurse Steals Painkilling Drug From Hospital : Camarillo: The two syringes of Demerol are worth about $100 on the street, authorities said.

A woman posing as a nurse stole two syringes loaded with the painkiller Demerol from Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo, authorities said Tuesday.

The impostor--wearing a white lab coat, white pants and a white blouse--fled from the Antonio Avenue facility with the drug, which gives a high similar to that obtained from heroin, Ventura County sheriff’s officials said.

The woman, described as a heavyset blond between 25 and 30 years old, was wearing a badge that identified her as an employee of Staff Builders Temporary Personnel, a Ventura-based firm that frequently supplies nursing help to the hospital.

Sheriff’s officials said they are unsure whether the woman worked for the firm at one time or stole the identification. A Staff Builders spokeswoman declined to comment on the incident, which occurred Sunday.

The hospital has alerted other medical facilities in the area about the impostor and is investigating the case, spokeswoman Carol Keochekian said.

“I think we went through the normal security measures,” Keochekian said. “We will be talking about instituting even better measures as a result.”

It is the first time in the hospital’s 17-year history that medication has been stolen, she said.

But people impersonating nurses, doctors and patients to get drugs from hospitals have become a big problem in Southern California, said David Langness, vice president of communications of the Hospital Council, a nonprofit trade association based in Los Angeles.

Langness said he gets about two reports a month from hospitals experiencing such incidents.

“Because California hospitals use so many registries now, it’s more difficult to recognize who’s on staff and who isn’t,” he said.

However, he said most of the theft attempts that he hears about are foiled.

“That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible if you are wily to impersonate hospital personnel and get away with drugs,” he said. “It’s just very unlikely.”

Demerol is a narcotic frequently given to patients after surgery. The amount that was stolen has an estimated street value of $100, authorities said.

The incident began about 5 p.m. when the woman approached a nursing station on the second floor and told a nurse that her unit was out of Demerol, according to a report written by Deputy William Schierman.

The nurse gave her a filled syringe from a locked drug cart and asked her to sign the drug out on an inventory sheet, the report said. The woman did so, giving a patient’s name.

The woman then went to another nursing station on the floor and asked for more of the drug, giving the same patient’s name, the report said.

During a subsequent inventory, performed every eight hours, nurses realized that the theft had occurred and called authorities, a hospital spokeswoman said.

But after deputies left, the woman returned. When she asked for more Demerol, a nurse recognized her and told nurse Mathew Curtis about the theft, the report said. The woman overheard the comment and ran down the hall, the report said.

Curtis chased her to the front parking lot, where she climbed into a dark blue car. Curtis, who was standing behind the car, was forced to jump out of the way to avoid being hit, the report said.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Keith Lazz said he could understand why the woman returned to the scene.

“She was successful,” he said. “She’s going to try again.”