A man hired as caregiver to developmentally handicapped adults was sentenced to jail after causing burns to a patient in his care. The charges arose after the caregiver placed a patient in a bath of scalding hot water. A jury found the man guilty of endangering a patient, a third degree felony.

According to state citations, one nursing home has been fined nearly $240,000 in the past year as a result of care violations that placed patients in “immediate jeopardy.” The fines amounted from just two citations in May and December of last year. The first violation involved the facility’s failure to inform a treating physician of the deteriorating condition of a resident who was later found dead. The physician later reported that had he known of the resident’s condition, he would have sent th…

A woman who has a long career as a certified nurse’s assistant anonymously filed a complaint with the state against a for-profit nursing home where she was employed. The aide claims that two patient deaths occurred at the facility last year when patients choked and the nurses on duty didn’t follow the resuscitation orders or call 911. The aide says the nurses ignored the protocols and advised others to do nothing to assist the patients who had choked.

Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying additional victims of a nursing home employee who was charged with sexually assaulting an elderly disabled woman. Police say the 28-year-old male maintenance worker faces one felony count each of sexual battery on an institutionalized victim and sexual penetration of an incompetent victim. The man allegedly entered the victim’s room between in June – July 2012 and sexually assaulted her.

The attorney general and Medicaid Fraud Unit have resolved a case against two women accused or nursing home fraud and abuse.  The women were investigated following the death of a resident who had severe bed sores (also known as pressure sores, pressure ulcers, decubitus ulcers, and decubitus sores). The former owner and nurse practitioner at the nursing home have both plead guilty to criminal neglect that lead to death. The facility where the incident occurred was shut down in 2011 due to n…

According to court documents, a former director of nursing at one nursing home was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for inappropriately medicating elderly patients at the facility.  The State Department of Justice brought allegations that the 59-year-old nurse ordered the director of pharmacy to write orders for psychotropic medication for 23 patients who did not need the medicine. The facility was first investigated after an ombudsman reported that a patient at the facility had…