Water and sugar – Jonathan Zenti

At the end of 2019, Laura was diagnosed with breast cancer. The treatments to which you have to undergo could put your fertility at risk for which you, in agreement with the doctors, decide to freeze your eggs at the Fertility Center of Yale University, in the United States, before therapy. The procedure involves inserting a needle down the vaginal duct to the ovaries. The patient must be sedated and for this she is given a solution of midazolam, a muscle relaxant, and fentanyl, an opioid pain reliever. A few seconds after the start of the surgery, Laura begins to feel pain that she has never felt before. The doctors tell her to “keep calm”, “don’t overdo it”, to relax, and attribute a generic “drug resistance”. Yet the pain during the operation does not decrease. A few months later Laura and other patients received a letter from the clinic: it was discovered that Donna Monticone, the head nurse, suffering from an opiate addiction, had emptied the vials of fentanyl for months to replace them with a solution of water and sugar. This New York Times investigation focuses on the stories of the victims, their experience of physical pain, the medical prejudice against motherhood and the risks of entrusting the health of citizens to private clinics.