A Registered Nurse and a Certified Nurse’s Aide at Beth Abraham Health Services, a Bronx Nursing Home, were recently sentenced after being prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the New York Attorney General’s Office. A mentally and physically disabled resident with a propensity to wander, eloped from the facility while under the care of RN Dorothy Bain and C.N.A. Vicky Williams. The facility’s video surveillance revealed that the resident was not in the facility for six hours. Over that six hour span, both employees documented caring for him and RN Bain documented that she had administered medications to the resident. It is unclear whether the resident was injured as a result of the incident. Allowing a resident to elope from a nursing home facility is obviously fraught with danger. We have handled cases where elopement has resulted in falls, fractures and even death. Here, the nursing staff compounded the problem by falsifying records.
Both Bain and Willaims were sentenced to a one-year Conditional Discharge with the conditions including the surrender of their respective licenses. They both must also refrain from working in the health care field for the duration of the Conditional Discharge.
Website Resource:
Long-Term-Care Community Coalition, Enforcement Actions.