Was It Murder Or Irony?

[Nikki69]

About a month and a half ago, I got a new resident in my LTC facility where I work as a CNA. She was doing alright under her circumstances(extremely short of breath, low O2 stat, etc.) I was getting her up at least once during my shift for therapy or just to sit up for a while to visit with the other residents, but over the course of a week, she had been declining steadily. About a week ago, my partner who was assigned to take care of her that day asked me to come and help her pull her up in bed after she took her off the bedpan. We got her off the pan, and pulled up in bed, while her grandson stepped out of the room. A few minutes later, the grandson went to our nurse and told her that his grandma was a total mess, which we knew wasn't true because we were just in there about fifteen minutes prior. We went in the room to find her bed wet on one side like someone had dumped water right there. We changed her bedding and got her situated. Well, three days ago, her grandson and his wife returned and visited with her for a while. We entered the room, and the man wouldn't move from the spot where he was standing-right in front of the oxygen concentrator. About 20 minutes later, we went in the room, and the oxygen had been unplugged, and she was dead. It was just a very suspicious situation, and we heard she had a bit of money. Things like this make you wonder. I don't know, maybe you had to have been there. We did report what happened.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Wow! Does make you wonder, huh? If I had been the charge nurse and you had told me this and I had seen the O2 concentrator unplugged I would have made a call to the coroner's office to report this to be on the safe side. I think it would have been the coroner's call at that point as to what to do. Put the money thing out of your mind--it's just something you've heard. There's probably no way to know the real truth.

After working in LTC a number of years I've seen a few suspicious things. I've seen where the children of private patients (ones who pay the monthly fee to stay in the nursing home) become welfare cases after the families systematically start selling off their assets. There's nothing you can do about it.