Nursing Assistant Resources On The Web

This story is sad- and I’m not sure this is a bad idea. I am against lawsuits and similar- BUT- this facilty was obviously neglectful in it’s ability to keep track of it’s residents. In today’s world this is inexcusable. Modern nursing homes have Wander Guard systems to keep residents safe.

Tammy Terry remembers her mother as a woman who turned her love for animals into a successful dog-grooming business, a woman who never sat idle, who both worked on cars and sewed lingerie.

Terry prefers these memories to the other image that is etched indelibly in her mind: Her mom lying alone for four days in a dark storage room at Liberty Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

Just days earlier, Terry’s mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease, had begged to come home. “I told my husband, ‘I want her moved. I want her closer to me,’” said Terry, 45, of Gastonia.

The daughter will live with her guilt for the rest of her life. Although she isn’t to blame for this incident- modern society can share some of the blame here. Back in the day people used to keep their parents home in their old age, and take care of them. This is just about unheard of today. People have “too much” going on for this.

She never got that wish. On Jan. 23, two days after Terry last saw her mom, 66-year-old Mary Hicks Cole went missing from Liberty. Four days later, Cole was found, dehydrated and sick with pneumonia, in a storage room on the same second floor where she was kept in an Alzheimer’s unit.

Cole died a half-hour later at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. The state would find that conditions at Liberty presented immediate jeopardy to residents’ health and safety and would levy the heaviest possible fine — $10,000 a day — until the nursing home fixed the problems.

We recall this story and how shocked many of us were. It happens all the time though. Residents wander off, and if the facility has no policy in place to search and locate these missing, they end up dead.

Now, nearly six months later, Terry is on a mission to see that her mother’s death is paid for with more than a mere monetary offering. She’s pursuing a civil suit, but what she wants most is for someone in charge to take criminal responsibility for her mother’s death.

“It never should have happened,” Terry said last week, breaking down in tears after listening to the 911 call made after staff found her mother.

Terry has a reason to be upset and for wanting to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Whether a civil lawsuit is the answer here is up to each of us to decide. I would also take this issue further by reaching out to people- to nursing home management.
I would try to speak about the policies and procedures that could be put in place to prevent these incidents from happening in the first place. I believe this would be more effective.