Nurse fired for reporting Abuse

Nurse Annie O'Malley says she was fired from the MetroHealth Prentiss Center nursing home for reporting what she believed to be abuse inside the facility.
"I don't think Tina or the Prentiss Center wants to have any more bad publicity," OMalley said.
Tina Szatala is the nursing home's chief administrator. O'Malley was referring to her and the series of reports that Investigator Tom Meyer aired in June 2011 regarding the abuse of Esther Piskor, 78, a resident suffering from Alzheimers.
O'Malley says she contacted the state about an incident in September of last year regarding a 90-year-old resident who was alone in her room, screaming and crying for help. The resident needed assistance to go to the bathroom.
O'Malley says when nurses' aides didn't respond, the resident decided to climb out of bed and into a wheelchair.
"The bed was in the high position. 4 rails up. This woman crawled out of bed, which she could have killed herself, getting out of bed," said O'Malley
http://www.wkyc.com/news/article/287284/45/Investigator-Nurse-says-she-was-fired-for-reporting-alleged-abuse


by Bernard Hamill
Nursing Home Abuse

Need for Nursing Home reform

On the lawn of the state Health Department, flanked by the daughters of a 96-year-old woman who was physically abused by two Oklahoma City nursing home aides last year, Wes Bledsoe said the department should amp up its inspections and investigations process immediately.

Eryetha Mayberry sat in a wheelchair and suffered from dementia when two nurses aides at Quail Creek Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center were arrested on abuse complaints last April.
Mayberry's daughters set up a hidden video camera after they noticed some of their mom's personal items missing. But instead of catching a thief, the tape revealed two women pushing the women's mother and gagging her with gloved hands.
One of the women, Lucy Gakunga, 24, is now serving a prison sentence at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud. Her co-defendant, Caroline Kaseke, 29, has not been convicted and remains at large.
Bledsoe said it is unconscionable that the state Health Department is not investigating the nursing home and said it reflects the department's attitude about this type of abuse.
He said the department cited only six of the state's 300-plus nursing homes for failing to protect residents from abuse in the past 31/2 years, despite 57 such citations in the 31/2 years before that.
“That, to me, is scandalous,” Bledsoe said.

The state investigated more than 1,240 complaints at nursing homes last year alone, and cited 1,000 of them for deficiencies, Huser said.
Twenty citations have been issued against nursing homes since May 2009 for failure to protect residents from abuse.
http://newsok.com/daughters-of-abused-nursing-home-patient-call-for-reform-in-oklahoma/article/3763498

by Bernard Hamill
Nursing Home Abuse