Monday, January 27, 2014

Prescription for danger: Medication errors inside nursing homes lead to hospitalization, death


 WXYZ) - Roy Rach was supposed to spend just a few days at St. Joseph’s Caretel Inn.

In the winter of 2011, the 81-year-old had gotten out of the hospital after being treated for an abnormal heartbeat.  Doctors prescribed him a few days of rehab.

"He was alert and happy when he went in there," remembers his daughter Karen Rach.

"And how did he leave?" Channel 7's Ross Jones asked.

"He left in a stretcher in a diabetic coma," she responded.

Karen remembers standing over her father’s hospital bed, hoping he’d wake up.  But at Caretel, according to state records, his diabetes had gone untreated.

"We were hoping we’d be able to get a chance to talk to him again," Karen recalls.

Her father died just days after Thanksgiving.  His family says a hospital helped saved his life, but his nursing home ended it.

Full Article & Source:
Prescription for danger: Medication errors inside nursing homes lead to hospitalization, death

3 comments:

StandUp said...

It's a common problem, unfortunately, and would have happened to my loved one had I not been there to stop and correct the nurse.

Thelma said...

It's a problem the government must do something about.

Anonymous said...

Scott Schuett had hundreds upon hundreds of medication errors, including missing medication, mis-administered medication, and failure to administer prescribed medication, in each and every one of his six facilities with 400 people.

Nevertheless, the Commonwealth of Virginia dithered for over a year and a half, from March 5, 2012 to October 1, 2013, before adverse publicity forced it to close these hellholes.

We have only begun to scratch the surface of the unsavory politics at play here, but it now appears that Governor Bob McDonnell's office may have played a part in this ongoing fiasco. Please google Scott Schuett and Bob McDonnell for more information on these two characters.