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4 Staff Arrested At

Focus Nursing Home

94-Year-Old Woman Left In Recliner

For 41 Hours, Attorney General Alleges

Focus_LOGO-OstegoGREENCOOPERSTOWN – Four former employees of Focus Rehabilitation & Nursing Center were arrested for allegedly leaving a 94-year-old resident alone in a recliner for nearly two days, according to Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

LPN Lorraine Caldwell, 54, Holland Patient; LPN Amanda Gus, 30, Hartwick; Sarah Schuyler, certified nurse assistant (CNA), 29, and CNA Donna Gray, 48, Sidney, face charges they they each failed to provide care to a 94-year-old resident over the Memorial Day weekend this year.

Surveillance camera footage allegedly shows a resident, identified as “M.P,” was left in a recliner for 41 hours, receiving only one meal, one round of her medications and one change of her briefs. At the end of the 41-hour period, the resident was removed from the recliner, returned to her room and diagnosed with a pressure sore measuring 4 cm x 2 cm. When people send their elderly relative to a care home, they hope they are in safe hands. But when you find out that some of them suffer from nursing home abuse from people you should trust, then that is a whole other story. If a relative tells you that they are being treated unfairly in a care home, don’t ignore it as it may only get worse. Plus getting to the bottom of this will be for the best. Consequently, if you believe your loved one has been abused or injured by a nursing home’s negligence, a nursing home abuse attorney can help you to establish your next steps. For more information and a free legal consultation, go to https://www.louthianlaw.com/nursing-home-lawyer/.

“Our healthcare workers have a basic duty to care for their patients, to provide required care, keep them safe and not to injure them,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “My office will bring to justice caregivers who hurt and neglect patients, who ignore the law and safety protocols, and who falsify records to cover up their crimes.”

According to Schneiderman’s press release, charges were brought including falsifying business records, endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person in the first degree, as well as the misdemeanor charge of willful violation of health laws.

According to Gray’s lawyer, Dennis Laughlin of Cherry Valley, she was only charged with a misdemeanor.

They four were arriagned today before Otsego Town Justice Gary Kuch in Fly Creek. The defendants were released on their own recognizance.

The investigation was conducted by Investigators Danette Benson and Michael Connelly of Albany’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit with the assistance of Medical Analyst Stephanie Keyser, Supervising Investigator Dianne Hart and Upstate Deputy Chief Investigator William Falk.

This case was handled by Regional Director Kathleen Boland and Special Assistant Attorney General Erin Lynch of the Albany Regional Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Attorney General. Catherine Wagner is MFCU’s Upstate Chief of Criminal Investigations. The New York Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is led by Director Amy Held and Assistant Deputy Attorney General Paul Mahoney. The Criminal Justice Division is led by Kelly Donovan.

Posted

18 Comments

  1. Pathetic! Hope they all get their licenses revoked and never get reinstated!! How would they like it if that happened to their family member?

  2. I say that is disgraceful. They should face charges. How long has this been happening to these poor senior citizens??

  3. There is allot more to this story then what they are letting you see. What they don’t tell you is the resident refused care. She decided she was going to sit in her recliner and not move because she was mad about something. She refused care several times and was approached. Don’t get me stone this facility is severely understaffed and miss managed. They put there workers in these positions and there licenses at stake. Where they require two person lifts half the time they don’t have but just one person to do it and if they didn’t do the lift by themselves it wouldn’t get done. If the people would have tried to perform care on this resident without her permission they would have been facing infringement of her rights. The only way around this would have to gotten signed permission from her caregiver or family to allow care. This whole thing falls on management and there lack of the same at this facility. Don’t always believe what your read in a general headline to keep readers glued into just one part of a story there’s always a bit more to it.

  4. Short staffed,no support from management-what do you expect!!! Pay your workers better and you will attract staff!!Respect your staff and they will stay!! Lessons not learned from Delaware county infirmary disasters are repeated at the manor!!! I hope the politicians in both counties who sold the places die horrible deaths!!!

  5. I have been in nursing for 50 years. When I first started out it was common to see patients forced to get out of bed and take meds against their will. As time progressed a little thing called the Patients Bill of Rights came into play. If a patient refused to get out of bed you explained why it was in their best interest; if they still refused you charted that they refused and what you had explained and that they continued to refuse. If they did not want their meds I would wait and return with them a couple of times. If they continued to refuse I disposed of them and charted that I had returned with them times 3 and patient continued to refuse. Sometimes they would take them on the second or third try but you could not force them down their throats. My late husband was, also, a nurse. He made a patient get out of bed one day because she was prone to Pneumonia. We had to hire an attorney because the state even got called in because her rights were violated even though it was in her best interest. After that no one would make her get up and she died of Pneumonia approximately a month later so do not be too quick to judge because there is definitely a lot more to this story.

  6. billy- there may be more to it; but you cannot leave a woman in a recliner for 91 hours and provide her with one meal. (period) There is a shortage of (good) health care workers, but even the not-so-good ones would recognize that this woman needs continence care and nutrition to avoid pressure sores. I’m not sticking up for management because I don’t know them, but the hands-on care givers were left to care for her. I tend to agree with Gene.

  7. Worse things happen at Bassett everyday. Atleast 2 patients have died as a direct result of nursing error. They lost their designated magnet status in nursing years ago and have never recovered. The leadership under the current CNO is abysmal. Is it any wonder why there is a nursing shortage?

  8. Even if she refused care for 41 hours these healthcare workers should have contacted a supervisor or manager for guidance in this situation. There is always a solution when it comes to elder care. And false documentation? Healthcare workers all know that you just don’t do it. Shame and karma!

  9. I am a BSN and work in Critical Care. I have worked in all different health care facilities and areas of nursing for 20 years. What it comes down to folks is CHARTING. That is all the lawyers will review and in the end if it is not charted then it wasn’t done. The reason for the nurse shortage today is that nobody wants to work at the bedside. I have been at the bedside for my entire career. I feel bad for all who are involved and I love being a Critical Care Nurse. Just remember all you nurses….you could of given the best TLC for your patient that day or night…. but if you don’t chart it then it was never done. Next time call the NOK, let them deal with their family members noncompliance.

  10. the county board of reps. should be proud of themselves, selling out the residents and staff, for what? did the tax payers get ahead in this sale,?hey should be a shame of themselves .Our elderly worked all their lives in times that they can tell you that were not great, and to end up being care for like trash .the place needs to be shut down that would take care of safety issues

  11. I agree with Billy. I work at a Nursing home. The management has the ability to solve the problems that many of the workers have no control over. It’s sad.

  12. They should be faced with some kind of charges at least negligentful homicide or some kind of charges they should at least see some kind of jail time that was not right and that was extremely neglectful they know what they were doing they have some kind of headcount when I was in the hospital the nurses would take my blood pressure before and after each of their shifts so they had to know something was wrong no question about it there’s no license should be revoked and they should face some kind of jail time

  13. for all you non health care providers, care givers or nurses please exclude yourselves from a topic you know nothing about. you literally can not for a resident to eat, receive treatment, take meds or have care provided. it doesn’t matter if they refuse for 365 days you can only reproach and document the refusal. i think the only the staff were guilty of is improper charting.

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