New York families often put the lives of their elderly loved ones in the hands of nursing home professionals. However, some of these so-called “professionals” are negligent on-the-job. This negligence can cause injuries and even deaths among nursing home residents.
The death of a resident at the hands of another resident caused the New York State Department of Health to issue a citation to the Emerald South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The citation states that the Center was negligent in failing to provide adequate care to the residents of the facility. The 82-year-old resident wandered in to the room of an 84-year-old dementia patient who beat him to death.
The attorney of the deceased man’s family says that the facility failed both patients. Staff allegedly failed to monitor the dementia patient every 15 minutes, which was part of his care plan. This lack of care was what ultimately resulted in the death of the other resident. The facility also failed to report the incident to the department of health in a timely fashion. Also, the state requires that each resident of the facility must have documentation for admission. There was no documentation found for the attacker in this case.
Emerald South has a history of violations of state and federal regulations and has a one-star rating. The facility has failed to provide adequate supervision in the past, causing numerous accidents. Many have reported that the facility focuses on keeping the facility full to earn more money and fails to focus on quality of resident care.
Source: WIVB, “State: Nursing home’s failure to ‘provide adequate care’ led to beating death,” Dave Greber, Feb. 27, 2017
