The three staff members in charge of the 39-bed home that night had been enjoying a 7- to 15-minute smoke break when they entered the facility and heard the bell. They went to the men’s room and found the one man on the floor of the bathroom. The workers notified the Health Department. The man who fell died three days later at a hospital, though the incident report says “there is no evidence to conclude that the resident’s death was, or was not, related to the allegations of neglect,” according to The Canadian Press.

It remains in question when the man fell – whether it was before the workers went outside or while they were outside. It is also unclear whether the bell was rung while the staff was on smoke break, or if the call came only after they re-entered the building. The workers claim they were just outside the building in the courtyard and that they would have heard the bell from a nearby open window.

The Health Department report claims the bell could not be heard outdoors. The nursing home responded by issuing a memo to staff about not leaving residents unattended. The home also took disciplinary action against the employees, firing one for his role in the incident. The College of Registered Nurses held a professional misconduct investigation and issued a formal reprimand to a nurse in the unit.

A spokesman with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly in Toronto said leaving residents unattended is very serious. “Even a 10-minute period can result in someone’s death if you have a serious situation.”

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Staffers leave nursing home residents unattended

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“I’d never give any kind of consent for any of that,” says Martin Bowman, Bruce’s son and legal guardian, to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. Martin approved all his father’s medication but said he was never told that the drug given to control his father’s agitation and physical aggression could kill him. In clinical trials, patients who died while taking Risperdal suffered from cardiovascular or infectious complications. Other side effects include vomiting, weight loss and muscle stiffness.

Risperdal is approved by the FDA to treat people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism with irritability. In 2005, the FDA issued the black box warning about the possible death in patients with dementia. A public investigator found that the nursing home was using consent forms that were seven years old, and thus didn’t show the black box warning.

Bruce died at the Taylor Park Nursing Home on June 19. His family says they visited him weekly and noticed he had started to deteriorate. They questioned nursing home aides who provided no answers. It was Bruce’s ex-wife, a former registered nurse, who discovered the medication Bruce was taking had a black box warning. The state Bureau of Nursing Home Resident Care investigated the home and found no violations of federal regulations by administering the drug.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Family says nursing home didn’t reveal black box warning

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During this time span, there were 60 days that Parungano claimed to have seen more than 32 patients – a feat that, at 45 minutes per patient, would take more than 24 hours to accomplish.

Last year, Parungano was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for her role in a health care fraud scheme that ultimately cost Medicare more than $3 million.

Though Parungano sits in prison, she remains a nurse in good standing in the State of California and is able to work in any hospital, medical clinic or nursing home, according to a Los Angeles Times and ProPublica investigation. The investigation found more than 100 recent cases where the state didn’t pull or restrict licenses until nurses had three or more criminal convictions. In some cases, these crimes include sex offenses and attempted murder.

California has the largest number of registered nurses in the nation. Hospitals and clinics turn to the California Board of Registered Nursing Web site to check job applicants for any accusations and disciplinary actions, which are posted on the site for the public to review. However, according to the report, the screening process is flawed.

Beginning in 1990, nurses had to submit fingerprints so that the nursing board would be flagged by law enforcement when a registered nurse was arrested. The 146,000 nurses hired prior to 1990 have not had to submit fingerprints. The board, which requires nurses to apply for licenses every two years, also doesn’t ask nurses to volunteer information about criminal convictions that occurred since the last time they applied.

Meanwhile, Parungano sits in a prison, looking forward to the day when she walks free and, possibly, works as a nurse again.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Nurses convicted of crimes still in good standing in California

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