Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Live-in Aide Convicted of Drugging Alzheimer's Patient

A Dumont home health-care worker has been convicted on charges that she drugged an elderly woman with sleeping pills to make her job easier.

Nina Powers, 59, was hired by a family in September 2010 to provide full-time care to a 74-year-old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, said Jessica Gomperts, an assistant Bergen County prosecutor.

Shortly after Powers moved into the home and started working, the family noticed that the elderly woman, who often woke up in the morning and stayed active for most of the day, had begun a pattern of napping on the couch all day, Gomperts said.

The elderly woman’s son and daughter-in-law became more suspicious when the woman came out wandering out of her bedroom one day, carrying a receipt for over-the-counter sleeping pills, Gomperts said.

The daughter-in-law then searched Powers’ drawers and found sleeping pills, Gomperts said. The daughter-in-law began counting the pills almost every day when Powers was away and found that five to nine pills went missing per day, Gomperts said.

“She was drugging her with these sleeping pills to knock her out so that she doesn’t have to do her job,” Gomperts said.

Full Article and Source:
Live-in Aide Convicted of Drugging Alzheimer’s Patient

3 comments:

  1. The state can't/won't do anything to screen such workers. The only answer is a Granny cam

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  2. Same thing they do in nursing homes....and it's no more right there.

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  3. And another answer is to lock up the guilty party sending a message don't think about it because a prison cell is waiting for you. If you don't like your job, find another line of work, no one is forcing the live-in aides are they?

    ReplyDelete