Aide is charged with scalding residents
Posted by Patti on April 13th, 2007 / Print This Post
An aide is in major trouble for giving residents a bath in water that is TOO HOT.
Paula Marie Drew, 40, was charged on Wednesday with two counts of caretaker neglect for two incidents at the Green Park Nursing & Rehab Center, where she worked before she was suspended March 1.According to an affidavit filed with the charge, Drew gave showers on March 1 to two residents who later were found to have been scalded.
When Drew placed the first resident in the shower, he suffered a seizure, fell, and hit his head, states the affidavit by Steven Johnson, a criminal investigator with Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office.
Drew summoned a nurse to the shower room, and the nurse found burns and peeling skin on the man’s face, neck, stomach and thighs, the affidavit says.
The resident, who was blind and mentally retarded, was hospitalized with burns over 20 percent of his body and a head injury, according to court records.
The next day, a second patient at Green Park developed large blisters on his hand and arm, the affidavit says. Drew also had given a shower to that resident March 1, the affidavit says. That patient, who was mentally retarded, was hospitalized with burns over 6 percent of his body.
The day after the scaldings, a state Health Department nurse checked the facility’s water temperature and found that it was 126 degrees, nine degrees higher than allowed by state regulations.
Drew told investigators that “she did not intentionally burn” the residents but “did admit that she left both residents alone in the shower too long for an unknown length of time,” the affidavit states.
Often the nursing home also must take responsibility for these types of injury. More and more though, aides are being held personally accountable because they can and should KNOW when water is TOO HOT…they should always seek supervision when in doubt about this stuff. It matters little that the residents were left unattended in the specifics of bathing (although this is another crime altogether); what matters is hot water burns on contact.
Where I work we have water thermometers located in each tub area as well as where every shower is located. LNA’s are expected to measure water temp before placing a patient in the water. Any temp over 104 means TOO HOT= NO BATH/SHOWER. We get the nurse and document this and call maintenance. We have these safeguards in place precisely to prevent burns.