Nursing Home Cover-Up: NY Aides Lied About Doing Their Jobs
As a nursing home lawyer, I spend a lot of time reviewing patient charts. Particularly when it comes to evaluating cases, a thorough review of medical records is crucial for determining the important questions: Who? What? Why? When?
Occasionally, my chart reviews reveal more than I expect when: medication charts reveal that medication was administered for days after my client was transferred to another facility. Or on one occasion, there were nurses’ notes for hours following a client’s death.
When I see serious charting errors, I makes me question not just the care surrounding a particular incident, but all care at the entire facility.
I applaud a recent case where criminal charges were filed against three nurses aides at a Bronx, NY nursing home who clearly lied about caring for patient who had wandered from the facility.
After comparing the patient’s chart with a videotape from the facility, it was apparent that three aides at Beth Abraham Health Services lied about caring for the patient whom had already left the facility.
Thankfully, the patient was located safe shortly after a housekeeper at the nursing home reported she was missing to the police. Nonetheless, the attorney general has filed charges relating to:
- Endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person
- Falsifying medical records
- Willful violations of health law
No word on when these nursing home employees will face their trial, but the facility obviously didn’t think much about the criminal charges—or safety concerns for other patients---- these aides were reinstated after they were initially fired.
Related:
Three nursing home aides lied about missing schizophrenic patient in wheelchair, NYDailyNews.com, February 24, 2011
Nursing Home Injury Laws: New York
Nursing Home Settles Lawsuit After Fraudulent Records Discovered
Comments (1)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endCharlie - March 15, 2011 8:36 AM
As a former Hospice CNA, I often oriented new CNA's to a patient and they started the care sometimes days before the nurse arrived to meet them. I also often oriented the nurse to the patient days after I started the care, and many times the nurse would do the care plan by what I said and not by their own assessment.
Also often times they used aides from temp agencies, and months after the aide was gone the office was scrambling to gather paperwork for charts because the state was coming and they would have to just forge an aides name on the paperwork.