While sailing one day, wealthy, young Ken is knocked overboard when he becomes distracted while flirting with two women in a passing boat. Saved by the women, off duty nurses Michelle and Kitty, Ken is taken to the hospital by Kitty, who is dressed in only her bikini. There Kitty’s superior, stern nurse Dockett, reprimands her for her attire. As the heavily sedated Ken falls asleep, dreaming of making love to Kitty, Ken’s domineering father, Fairbanks, insists that his son compete in the upcoming regatta despite his dislocated shoulder. The next day while making a house call on Teddy, a conjunctivitis patient, Michelle discovers that he has unexpectedly died. As the paramedics take the body away, a policeman scoffs that Teddy must have been a junkie, angering Michelle, who knows Teddy was not using drugs. Soon after, Michelle learns from the hospital chemist that the vitamins Teddy was using contained quadrone, an aphrodisiac and hallucinatory drug removed from the market because it induced a coma if not given in proper amount. Michelle asks family friend Doc Haskell about quadrone, but he claims to be unaware of the drug. Back at the hospital, nurse Joanne is frustrated that the hospital is so short staffed and constrained by bureaucracy that patients suffer, necessitating that she perform doctors’ work unauthorized. After being reprimanded several times by nurse Dockett, Joanne takes a second job at a women’s clinic. Meanwhile, Kitty and Ken begin having an affair, with sex in the physical therapy hot tub and on trips to the beach, despite Fairbanks’ repeated attempts to break them up. Still trying to hunt down those responsible for Teddy’s death, Michelle asks her ex-lover, drug dealer Lester, about quadrone, but he provides no answers. The next day, Michelle is riding her motorcycle when two men chase her in their jeep. Cornering her on the beach, the men trap Michelle under the pier, but a fisherman spots the trouble and snags one of the men with his lure, allowing her to flee. Afterward, Michelle meets Lester, who slips quadrone into her drink and takes her to his boat for an orgy. Waking up the next morning, Michelle races to Haskell’s clinic for answers. Meanwhile, Kitty sneaks into the marina where Ken is preparing his boat for the regatta and convinces him to let her crew for the race, instead of his father. As they pull away from the dock, Fairbanks screams at his son that Ken will surely lose without his help. Back at the hospital, Kitty is suspended from work after ordering an emergency blood transfusion without a doctor’s approval. Later at the women’s clinic, the doctor in charge warns Joanne that she must control her temper after Joanne’s indignant outburst in front of a priggish woman reporter. At Haskell’s clinic, Michelle discovers a supply of quadrone then spots the jeep that chased her pull away. Michelle follows the men driving the jeep to the beach, where they meet with Lester and Haskell on a boat. Capturing Michelle, the doctor attempts to inject her with a fatal dose of quadrone, but she fights back causing Haskell to accidentally stab himself, dying within minutes. As Lester prepares to throw Haskell’s body overboard, he explains to Michelle that the doctor had accumulated over $250,000 by overcharging elderly Medicare patients in a fraudulent scheme. When he suggests they escape to Mexico with the money, Michelle refuses. Desperate, Lester holds Michelle at knifepoint and forces her into a small cubby under the deck. After Michelle wedges some metal in the steering cables, the boat starts turning in circles, prompting Lester to open the hatch to the cubby. Michelle then jumps overboard, swimming to Kitty and Ken, who have pulled out of the race. Realizing he cannot escape the authorities, Lester throws the piles of money into the air, blanketing the water with cash. Back at the hospital, Joanne attends the Board hearing about the death of the patient to whom she administered the blood transfusion. The board and Dockett accuse Joanne of infractions and blame her for the death, casued by scepticemia. Prompted by Joanne’s lover, who also works at the hospital, the chemist testifies that he was asked to hide the fact that there have been four cases of septicemia caused by a tainted blood shipment, not Joanne’s negligence. When offered probation instead of termination, Joanne, furious that the board planned on using her as a scapegoat, quits to work full time for the women’s clinic and makes plans to rendezvous with her lover.