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Yale agreed on Monday to pay dozens of patients who had filed lawsuits claiming that they had endured excruciatingly painful egg retrieval procedures after a nurse at its fertility clinic secretly swapped their anesthesia for saline.
The amount of money Yale paid was not disclosed, but the plaintiffs’ lawyers said it was “substantial.” In court filings late last year, they proposed a settlement of roughly $2 million for each patient.
“This mutual agreement allows both parties to move forward and begin healing,” Karen Peart, a spokeswoman for Yale, said.
The 93 patients involved in the settlement were seen at Yale Fertility Center in 2020. Some of their shocking stories were told in “The Retrievals,” a popular 2023 podcast from Serial Productions and The New York Times.
In the lawsuits, the patients described their egg retrievals — short surgical procedures that typically use fentanyl as an anesthetic — as intensely painful. Many said they had complained to Yale but were ignored.