Holy cow - what are people thinking

Specialties Geriatric

Published

Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060130/NEWS01/601300433&SearchID=73234268200025

Demented pt wanders out of nursing home, freezes to death, and according to the lawsuit filed by his family, staff tried to cover up the cause of death. Thank goodness that there are wonderful nurses and aides doing the grueling work of LTC every day, but then there are these dufuses.

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I absolutely hate to hear things like that :( It's so sad. No one deserves to die that way...alone, freezing, and probably very confused. I hope justice is served.

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This is not an isolated incident. Same thing happened in Pittsburgh not to long ago.

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Specializes in Home care, assisted living.

At a staff meeting recently our administrator mentioned the story of the woman who disappeared from a facility and the fact that the CNA was charged with negligence. This was meant to scare us into being more vigilant. My co-workers have been a little more nervous since then.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Of themselves only, that's what they were thinking.

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This happened this year in tennessee too, in an assisted living facility.:(

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Good Lord. While the negligence could possibly - possibly - be at least understood as an accident, a willful attempt to deceive is simply so unethical and deserving of punishment.

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Specializes in LTC.

Trying to cover up what really happened is sick.

Recently in MN we had a lady wander away from an Assisted Living Facility and freeze to death. Frightening part was that she was wearing a wander gaurd so staff should have known that she had left the building at 1am.

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everybody tries to cover there own butt---a few years ago we had a cold spell - temp down in 20s - so the gate was put on hold so as the staff wouldn't have to stand out in the cold - when am shift was in the gate was shut after breakfast there was a card for this one guy who had not eaten, a search of the nh revealed he was not on premises,

the police were called and two days later a hunter found him dead about a mile away from facility...no one admitted to leaving the gate open..in fact some of the staff on duty at that time blamed another resident for opening the gate

family who had not visited him in the five years that he had been there received a financial settlement...no one faced criminal charges but the night nurse was fired...a sacrificial lamb

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

You have to wonder in some of these cases if it was negligence or staffing!

In the last instance, @ least they knew he was gone, and a search was attempted and it wasn't concealed. Sad outcome, but nonetheless.

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Wow. Do people honestly think that an autopsy is not going to reveal that the person froze to death and death was not from some other cause?

I mean, they are just so smart now a days, and science just reveals everything.

You can't cover something like that up. Tissue will reveal that it was frozen....I don't know exactly how, but I'm sure it would.

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What baffles me is that they thought they could cover this up.

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