Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Reports of deaths and serious complications in patients who have been treated with Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) systems has resulted in a warning to acute and long-term health care facilities staff and consumers by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

NPWT is a topical negative pressure, sub-atomospheric pressure dressing or vacuum sealing technique generally indicated for the management of wounds, burns, ulcers, flaps and graphs. NPWT apply negative pressure to the wound in order to remove fluids, including wound exudates, irrigation fluids and infectious materials. The system is thought to benefit wounds healing by removing wound fluid and dessicated tissue, decreasing the level of bacteria in the wound, improving blood flow in the wound and surrounding tissue, promote granulation tissue, and pulling the wound edges together and stimulating cell growth.

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The punishment didn’t fit the crime in the eyes of the victim’s stepdaughter. She expressed her disappointment with the judge’s decision during a lengthy address at a court hearing. But the decision stood.

In January 2008, two employees at Radius Health Care Center in Quincy, Maine, saw their co-worker Elizabeth Landry, a 25-year-old nursing assistant, slapping a man on the head with an open hand, swearing at him and calling him and obscene name. She also reportedly pulled the man out of his wheelchair and threw him into a bed. The man was a stroke victim and used a wheelchair for mobility.

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Richard Constable, 66, walked away from his Staten Island assisted living facility and remained gone for two days before staff bothered to call the police, according to the Staten Island Advance. Staff felt the police would respond better the longer the man was missing.

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No one knows how 95-year-old Fannie Mae Rooks ended up outside on the night before Christmas Eve. But somehow her wheelchair had been pushed through the handicapped-accessible doors to the outdoor smoking area at Northgate Park Nursing Home in Florissant, Mo, according to Trading Markets/St. Louis Post-Dispach. Rooks was found dead in the courtyard around 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

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Brent P. Dellarma was a practicing physical therapist employed by Genesis Rehabilitation at Sandy River Center for Health Care in Farmington, Maine, for nearly a year between 2007 and 2008, until management suspected something was awry with his paperwork. The man had worked as a physical therapy assistant and then as a physical therapist at Sandy River Center. He had documentation filed with the Board of Examiners in Physical Therapy in the state’s Department of Professional and Financial regulation. However, an investigation found that the paperwork Dellarma filed was bogus and that he had misrepresented his qualifications, according to the Morning Sentinel.

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