Don’t ever document care you didn’t actually give. It’s always better to be honest than to lie about this stuff. It’s not clear what happened here, but the staff here let down a lot of people.

(Rochester, NY) 12/06/05 — Six former nursing home workers admitted in court on Tuesday that they did not provide any care for one man during a one-month period.

The workers–two nurses and four nursing assistants–were suspended from Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home on Portland Avenue in Rochester after a hidden camera investigation revealed the neglect.

They also admitted to covering up their behavior by falsifying the patient’s records.

The patient is OK. The workers lost their jobs.

Besides pleading guilty to the charges, the workers have also agreed to testify in the on-going investigation. Seven others at the home have been suspended, but not yet charged.

Under a plea deal, the charges were reduced from felonies to misdemeanors.

LPN Felecia Thomas admitted she neglected a patient who suffered from dementia, but would not say why. She failed to check the patient’s vital signs and give him necessary treatments, and then falsified records to cover up the neglect.

As part of her guilty plea, Thomas surrendered her nursing license.
Her attorney, Thomas DiSalvo said, “It’s tough…to have to lose her license…that’s what she was trained to do.”

The license of the other LPN charged, Natasha Grooms, is being reviewed. Grooms also admitted to neglecting the same patient.

Because they pleaded guilty to neglect, neither LPN nor any of the nursing assistants charged will ever be able to care for a patient in a nursing home again.

Jerry Solomon, of the NYS Attorney General’s Office, said, “By regulation, anyone convicted of abusing or neglecting a patient can never work in a nursing home in New York state again.”