by Benjamin Mateus
In a case that resembles that of former Tennessee nurse RaDonda
Vaught, a nurse who had worked at Capri Gardens Lewis Center nursing
home, Aminata Fofana, was sentenced on February 27, 2023, in a Delaware
County, Ohio, courtroom after pleading guilty to charges of involuntary
manslaughter in the death of a patient from asphyxiation on May 20,
2021.
During the brief but emotional proceedings, Fofana was
visibly shaken and expressed heartfelt remorse and apologized to the
court and the deceased’s wife, Luana Mowery, for her husband’s death.
Paul
Mowery, 72, had been a resident at the long-term care facility located
in Lewis Center, Ohio, just north of Columbus. The deceased had suffered
multiple strokes and an aneurysm that had left him debilitated and
without short-term memory. After caring for him for more than 20 years,
his wife transferred him to Capri Gardens in 2019, which had recently
been opened.
In January 2021, the family decided to place him in
hospice care at the facility. Mr. Mowery was using a tracheostomy mask
to breathe. A tracheostomy is a procedure whereby a hole is created in
the trachea, the airway through the throat, allowing for the placement
of a long-term oxygen tube directly into the lungs. It also leaves the
person unable to speak.
According to an investigation conducted by
the Ohio Department of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, at around 6:30 a.m. on May 20, 2021, Fofana, who was
completing her night shift, went into the patient’s room to check on
him. She told federal authorities that she removed his tracheostomy mask
to clean it because it was soiled. However, she forgot to reattach the
tubing. An hour later, the day shift nurse that entered the room found
the patient had died from asphyxiation.
Although the former nurse
explained to investigators in June that she had removed the mask and for
some reason had forgotten to reconnect it, the nursing home director
indicated in a separate report to the Ohio Department of Health that the
patient “had the ability to displace the tubing,” though his wife has
told local media that her husband couldn’t move. All he could do, she
told them, “was to open and close his eyes.” Clearly, the statement made
during the early phase of the investigation was intended to protect the
nursing home from any liabilities.
Fofana, born and raised in
Sierra Leone, had spent years working as a nurse to raise funds to bring
her children to the United States. She was fired the next day by the
nursing home and stripped of her nursing license. A year later, in May
2022, she was charged with reckless homicide and involuntary
manslaughter. A civil lawsuit filed in December 2021 by Luana Mowery
remains pending against Capri Gardens and its parent company for
negligence and wrongful death.
In January, Fofana pleaded guilty
to involuntary manslaughter, a third-degree felony. At her recent
sentencing, Delaware County Court of Commons Pleas Judge James Schuk
sentenced the former nurse to three years of a basic level of community
control.
According to the local NBC news affiliate, the judge
said, “In addition to Fofana’s community control sentence, she must
complete any classes a probation officer asks her to take, maintain
residence and employment approved by the probation officer, perform 100
hours of community service, pay a $500 fine, surrender her nursing
license and not work in any field of nursing taking care of sick
individuals, be it paid or volunteer service. Fofana may not leave the
state without permission or have any future violations of the law in any
manner.”
With
regards to Paul Mowery, one could ask where were the safeguards and
alarms that could have protected him from an accidental detachment of
his tracheostomy tube or low oxygen pressure? What about central
monitoring and video surveillance that would allow the staff to watch
patients who are considered critical or require equipment to maintain
their life? How many patients was Fofana carrying that night and how
many shifts had she taken prior to the accident?
There was widespread attention lasts year to the case of former nurse RaDonda Vaught,
whose medication error led to the death of a patient at Vanderbilt
University Medical Center. Vaught and Fofana were both scapegoated by
their employer, charged and convicted criminally, and lost their ability
to continue working in their profession.
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| Nurses await the sentencing decision for RaDonda Vaught in Tennessee, May 13, 2022. [Photo: WSWS] |
Like Vaught, Fofana never hid her mistake or made excuses for what
happened. The death will surely stay with her every day, including the
conviction she will have to shoulder for the rest of her life as she
searches for new employment. However, such events are clearly
system-based, generated by a complex health delivery system that
operates on the need to produce profits, while blaming workers for the
inevitable mistakes caused by time pressures and overwork.
The
scapegoating of health care workers serves only to drive workers out of
the field and make conditions even more dangerous for the patients. It
is not such criminalization but investment in the infrastructure and
health care workers that is urgently necessary.
Professor Bruce
Lamber, director of the Center for Communication and Health at
Northwestern University, who has written extensively on issues
pertaining to health communications, medication errors and safety,
speaking on the RaDonda Vaught case, told the WSWS, “It is an inherently
high-risk industry where the errors are consequential because people
are frail, because the substances we use are powerful, because the
interventions are risky, even when they go well, even when there’s no
mistakes. These interventions are dangerous a lot of the time.”
The WSWS made
the warning at the time that “the prosecution and conviction of Vaught
sets a dangerous precedent for the criminalization of medical errors.”
Vaught’s prosecution was followed by the case of Michelle Heughins.
The former county detention center nurse has been framed up in the
death of inmate John Neville in December 2019 in the Forsyth County Jail
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, although she tried to do her best
while prison officers prevented her from providing needed care to a
prisoner who died. Her trial date has been set for April 3.
Long-term
care facilities operating under a capitalist milieu, by their nature,
are chronically understaffed and frequently dilapidated and suffer from
very unhygienic conditions.
In one Connecticut nursing home, John Interlandi, who is the
conservator for his brother Joe, a long-term patient, told a local
media, “Based on my personal experiences, I am very concerned about the
care that folks like Joe receive within the nursing home setting. There
is clear lack of process, communication, suitable staff, commitment to
action and providing folks with a safe and respectful environment.”
A
recent complaint at the Montana Mental Health Nursing Care Center in
Lewiston led to a state inspection in January that revealed 42 instances
of “noncompliance with federal regulations.” According to a report in
the Billings Gazette, these ranged from “inadequate staffing,
improper infection control and preventable outbreak of COVID-19, to
neglect and sexual, verbal and physical abuse between patients.”
Last week, McKnight’s Long-Term Care News reported
that hundreds of Pennsylvania nursing home beds have remained empty
because facilities can’t hire staff to provide the care their patients
would require. In the survey conducted by the Pennsylvania Health Care
Association in their 2023 State of Nursing Facilities Report, 57 percent
of responding members reported they have beds they cannot fill due to a
lack of staff.
LeadingAge Pennsylvania sent a letter to
US Senator Bob Casey Jr. summarizing their concerns about the new
federal staffing requirements that will soon take effect. They wrote,
“We must recognize that providers are in crisis and residents’ access to
care is at risk, due in large part to historic underfunding and a
workforce crisis that predated the pandemic,” wrote President and CEO
Garry Pezzano.
The plight of Pennsylvania patients is only one
instance of the health care crisis in the US, where the profit-driven
delivery of medical care is in conflict with the need for adequate,
well-trained and well-rested staff, to the detriment of patients. The
criminalization and scapegoating of health care workers is an attempt to
cover up the situation without addressing the underlying causes.
Meanwhile,
corporations that own nursing homes and long-term care facilities are
bankrolling politicians, like Pasco County, Florida, Representative
Randy Maggard, who is introducing a far-reaching bill that would limit
claims against long-term care facilities in the state.
As the Sun Sentinel noted last week, “The proposed law comes as Florida nursing homes are seeing a spike in violations and complaints. The Tampa Bay Times reported
in early February that incidents have nearly doubled in Florida nursing
homes since 2019. Last year, Florida nursing homes were cited 83 times
for putting their residents at risk of immediate danger, according to
the media outlet. Citations by Florida’s Agency for Health Care
Administration stemmed from issues including neglect, abuse and poor
care. During the pandemic, Florida lawmakers gave the industry immunity
from liability for COVID-19 deaths and infections, a provision that
remains in effect.”
In a recent interview with the WSWS, retired
Detroit nurse Pat Cason-Merenda put it succinctly: “Health care has gone
from being a service to being an industry… we are seeing a decrease in
life expectancy and quality of life and standard of living to increase
revenues for corporations.”
Full Article & Source:
Former nurse at Lewis Center nursing home, Ohio, sentenced on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the accidental death of a resident
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