NEW BEDFORD -- The Center for Health and Human Services has reached an
out-of-court settlement in a suit filed by relatives of a patient at the
center's methadone clinic who died of a methadone overdose.

But the center remains under investigation by a handful of state and federal
agencies, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S.
attorney, in connection with its methadone operations and other financial
dealings.

The terms of the settlement reached last month in the Bristol County
Superior Court case were sealed and attorneys for the center and for
Marjorie Milosek, administrator of the estate of Sharon L. Newton, would not
comment on the details.

Ms. Newton died March 30, 1995, after receiving two doses of methadone, a
powerful narcotic, in one day, the suit alleged. An in-house investigation
by the center and a subsequent state probe found the nurse manager who
administered the second dose failed to check the clinic's computer system to
determine whether Ms. Newton had received a previous dose. The nurse
subsequently failed to file a report on the incident, according to court
records. The cause of Ms. Newton's death did not come to light until almost
a year later, when a disgruntled former employee told authorities about that
incident and another involving a nurse at the clinic, who also died of a
methadone overdose, according to reports.

A subsequent investigation of death certificates by The Standard-Times
linked six deaths to methadone use.

Methadone blunts heroin addicts' craving for the street drug and eases the
painful symptoms of heroin withdrawal. Its physiological effects on the
brain are similar to those of heroin, but without the "high" that addicts crave.

Ms. Newton's mother, Ms. Milosek of Fairhaven, filed the suit in March a
year ago, asking for an unspecified amount of damages. Her attorney, Steven
L. Hoffman of Sugarman and Sugarman of Boston, said the terms of the Feb. 3
agreement prohibit him from discussing it.

Attorney Scott Lang, who represents the center, said the nonprofit
organization's board of directors felt strongly about settling the suit.

"It was clearly a medical error by one of the center's staff members," he
said. "The allegations of methadone-related deaths involving patients at the
center are simply allegations and nothing more. These cases are extremely
difficult to prove. But in this instance the board felt strongly that if
there was the possibility of an amicable agreement, it should be done."