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Teenagers have normal adult brains They do not become addicted because their brains are not developed. Brain development is a problem with those who make these pronouncements. These new ideas about Heroin Addiction are for any age, mainly how to diagnosis the disease quickly before it gets out of hand. 90% of Heroin addiction starts in high school in 1-4/1000 students
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https://www.chaindrugreview.com/number-of-independent-pharmacies-in-u-s-increasing/
WASHINGTON — The number of independent pharmacies in the United States increased in 2020, according to a new analysis of pharmacy data. Pharmacy data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs, analyzed by the healthcare analytics firm Quest Analytics, shows the overall number of independent pharmacy stores increased by 449 between January 2020 and January 2021.
The analysis of new pharmacy store data also continues to show an overall 10-year positive trend for retail independent pharmacy openings in the U.S. Today, there are 2,645 more independent pharmacies than there were in 2011, which is almost a 13% increase over 10 years.
View Infographic on Pharmacy Data: Nationwide, More Independent Pharmacies in 2020.
“Neighborhood pharmacies play an important role in helping patients access their prescription drugs, a role made all the more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. This data sets the record straight that independent pharmacies continued to do well in 2020. Overall, there are more community pharmacies today than 10 years ago. Federal and state lawmakers should avoid enacting policies based on a misperception about pharmacy closure rates, especially when those policies risk increasing drug costs for patients at exactly the wrong time,” said Pharmaceutical Care Management Association president and CEO JC Scott. “Independent pharmacies, PBMs, and others in the drug supply and payment chain have worked together during the pandemic and should continue to focus on helping patients access affordable prescription drugs and lead healthier lives.”
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Uber has been ordered to pay $1.1 million to a blind passenger after an independent arbitrator ruled that the company’s drivers discriminated against her after refusing her rides on 14 separate occasions.
Lisa Irving, a San Francisco Bay Area resident, brought the claim against Uber in 2018 after “she was either denied a ride altogether or harassed by Uber drivers not wanting to transport her with her guide dog,” which she relies on.
Irving alleged that drivers left her stranded at night and caused her to be late to work, which may have contributed to her being fired.
Irving’s lawyers said their client suffered verbal abuse and intimidation, which did not stop after she brought her complaints to Uber.
“Of all Americans who should be liberated by the rideshare revolution, the blind and visually impaired are among those who stand to benefit the most,” Catherine Cabalo, one of Irving’s attorneys, told the BBC in a statement. “However, the track record of major rideshare services has been spotty at best and openly discriminatory at worst.”
“The bottom line is that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a guide dog should be able to go anywhere that a blind person can go,” she added.
Uber rejected Irving’s claims, insisting that its divers are “expected to serve riders with service animals and comply with accessibility,” but the arbitrator found that was not the case.
The investigation suggested that drivers were coached in ways to deny rides that would circumvent the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The arbitrator ruled that Uber was liable for violations of the ADA because of its “contractual supervision over its drivers and for its failure to prevent discrimination by properly training its drivers.”
The ADA prohibits businesses from denying transportation of a person with a guide dog.
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The nurse who is accused of removing the oxygen from a nursing home resident who died hours later has been charged with a felony.
Connie Sneed, 52, has been charged by the Clark County Prosecutor with practicing medicine without a license, a Level 5 felony. A Level 5 felony in Indiana carries a potential penalty of one to six years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Reached by telephone Friday morning, Sneed said, “I have no comment.” She said she has an attorney, but would not provide a name. Online court records don’t list an attorney representing her, either.
Sneed is a licensed practical nurse with an active license, according to the state’s online licensing database.
Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed on Thursday, a registered nurse at Wedgewood contacted the facility’s executive director about a “brazen” Facebook post written by Sneed:
“I just want y’all to know the hardest thing I’ve ever done in 28 years start a patient on O2 for 4 days 12 LPM. with a non-rebreather mask,” she wrote, describing the oxygen treatment of the resident. “I asked him on day 4 if he’s tired he said yes I said do you want me to take all this off for you and let you go and fly with the angels and he said yes.”
Sneed’s actions prompted an investigation by the Indiana Department of Health and the Office of the Attorney General. According to the health inspector’s documents, Sneed unhooked the oxygen from a resident of Wedgewood Healthcare, a nursing home in Clarksville. The man died hours later.
A probable cause affidavit identifies the resident as James Godrey, 72, who was admitted to Wedgewood on March 13, 2020. His medical conditions included dementia, a history of muscle weakness, difficulty walking and occasional depression. He was diagnosed with COVID-19 on April 26.
Attempts to reach Godrey’s family on Friday were unsuccessful.
Sneed told investigators that Godfrey’s oxygen level was at 64% when she decided to start him on oxygen without a doctor’s order. A healthy oxygen level is between 95% and 100%.
The health department report says a daughter was interviewed May 6 and indicated she started receiving calls the night of April 27 letting her know her father’s condition was declining. Sneed told the woman her father would not keep his mask on. The reports says the daughter talked with her father on a video call, asking him to keep on the mask and “he nodded his head up and down.”
The daughter, according to her account in the report, told Sneed “she could remove it, but try to put it back on him later when he calmed down.” On the following night, April 28, the daughter was “snuck” into the nursing home to see her father. “He had the mask in place, and was barely opening his eyes,” she said, according to the report. “She asked him to keep the mask on.
After the woman left, she said Sneed called again and said her father was not doing well. “The nurse told her if they sent him out to the hospital they would just be doing the same things they were already doing at the facility, so the family member told them to let him stay there and not send him out,” the report said.
The next call the daughter received was on April 30 from a different nurse. The report said the daughter was told her father had passed away at 8:52 a.m.
Sneed was fired from Wedgewood on May 6 after an admitting to superiors that she had not contacted Godfrey’s doctor when his oxygen levels began to decline days before his death, according to the affidavit.
In a May 6 interview with state health inspectors, Sneed confirmedthat she had removed the resident’s oxygen. She said that she’d had a “terrible” week and was caring for more than 40 COVID-19 patients at the facility when she forgot to notify the resident’s physician of his decline.
Sneed also told inspectors that the resident’s daughter had told her “if it was her father’s wishes she could remove the mask.”
Wedgewood’s executive director Scott Steward determined that Sneed had not obtained a doctor’s order to administer oxygen nor to later remove the oxygen supply.
Sneed did not try to hide her actions. In addition to her Facebook post and admission to health inspectors, Sneed told Teresa Trussel, an incoming nurse, during shift change that she had removed the oxygen and that the family had agreed to her doing so. Trussel assumed Sneed had obtained an order to administer and remove oxygen. Another employee that is not named in the affidavit said that Sneed also wrote a detailed statement about her actions in Godfrey’s chart.
Neither the family nor the facility was aware of Sneed’s actions until she posted about them on social media.
On Friday, attorney general spokeswoman Lauren Houck told IndyStar that her office had received a complaint that resulted in an investigation into the allegations made against the Wedgewood nursing home.
“We presented our findings to the Clark County Prosecutor and charges were filed as a result,” she said in an email.
Wedgewood was among the facilities hit particularly hard by the virus. At least 70 residents have contracted the coronavirus, and 20 have died at the 124-bed facility owned by Columbus Regional Hospital.
Going into the pandemic, Wedgewood had the lowest possible staffing rating from federal regulators – “much below average” – and was in the bottom 15% for total staffing nationally.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services currently rates the facility one star for its overall and health ratings and two stars for staffing. The number of health citations at the facility — 37 citations — is far above both the state average of 9.4 and the national average of 8.1.
Beth DeFalco, a spokeswoman for Communicare, the company that manages Wedgewood Healthcare, did not respond Friday to the charges filed against Sneed. She previously defended the care at Wedgewood in an emailed statement.
“Communicare staff have worked tirelessly to care for our residents during this global pandemic and we have followed all state and federal safety guidelines,” she said, although several Indiana facilities managed by the company were cited for violations last year. She also said that “nursing homes are being held to a higher scrutiny than hospitals and ERs.”
Emily Hopkins is a data reporter for IndyStar’s investigative team. Reach them at 317-444-6409 or emily.hopkins@indystar.com.
Contact Tim Evans at 317-444-6204 or tim.evans@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @starwatchtim.
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This looks like another Medical Board that has no understanding that surgical induced pain is different and ADDITIVE to existing chronic pain and this letter appears to be from a neurosurgical group.
This letter also suggests that any/all pts should expect pain to persist for up to at least TWO MONTHS post surgery.
So if the pt’s primary pain prescriber will not increase their pain therapy to compensate for the pt’s surgically induced pain…then it would appear that the pt can expect to live in a elevated – maybe even a torturous level of – pain for a couple of months.
The controlled substance act states that NO ONE CAN PRESCRIBE a controlled substance without doing a in person exam… so the question is… is the Arkansas Medical Board prescribing/de-prescribing controlled substances for pts that no one on the board has done a in person pt exam ?
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A recent Community Pharmacy Foundation (CPF) project delved into the fascinating world of pharmacogenomics. Stephanie Davis, PharmD, BCACP, part-owner of Goodrich Pharmacy in Anoka, Minnesota, worked on the project with Elise Durgin, PharmD, BCPS, and Emily Hulke, PharmD, who were residents at the time.
Davis and her team have collaborated with CPF in the past and generally participate in many projects. “We had the idea to perform and interpret pharmacogenomic testing, and when we have a new idea and need help financially or with a collaboration, we reach out to CPF for a grant and to make sure the program is sustainable,” she explained.
Initially, the plan was for a 12-month study on pharmacogenomic testing in patients taking opioids. However, at the 9-month mark, only 3 patients had enrolled in the study. Davis explained that some of these patients were afraid that their test results would lead to their physician taking away their opioids.
With CPF approval, the team decided to shift their focus to mental health care, which attracted many referrals from primary care providers in the area. Candidates were patients who were unsatisfied with their mental health treatment due to adverse effects (AEs) or ineffective medications.
How did the process work? Hulke explained that after receiving a referral for pharmacogenomic testing, she set up an initial appointment with the patient. During this appointment, the pharmacist or resident performed a full comprehensive medication review, including current medications and previous medications and what occurred when the patient took these medications.
Althouh pharmacogenomic testing might not reveal all of their answers, the team explained to patients that it could provide a piece to the puzzle in helping to identify the most appropriate medication. After obtaining consent, they took a cheek swab from the patient and sent the sample to OneOme for testing.
The resulting lab report provides information on the genes that may affect how the patient responds to certain medications. For example, in an ultrarapid metabolizer of a particular enzyme, a drug metabolized by that enzyme may not work, or the patient may need higher doses to achieve the desired response. On the other hand, a poor metabolizer may have an increased risk of AEs.
For example, citalopram is metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2C19, which reduces activity in the body. An ultrarapid metabolizer of CYP2C19 would have lower levels of citalopram in the plasma and thus a higher probability of medication failure with citalopram. On the other hand, a CYP2C19 poor metabolizer would have higher levels of citalopram in the plasma, and patients would be more likely to experience AEs from this medication.
The pharmacists and residents would consider the patient’s entire profile, looking at enzyme pathways for all of their medications, and provide the report, along with a recommendation, to the patient’s physician. The results of the testing were also discussed with each patient individually.
The results of the project varied. “The majority of patients liked having this information. It made them not feel like guinea pigs––like there was more information being used to decide which medication they should take rather than just throwing different medications at them,” Hulke explained. “They felt empowered and wanted to know more, even if the reports didn’t show exactly what they wanted or expected.” Moreover, the physicians were grateful for the information and interpretation of results, and many patients ended up on a different medication as a result of the report and recommendation.
Insurance coverage for the test kit varied, as did coverage for the interpretation, which could be billed as an office visit or medication therapy management (MTM) visit. Goodrich Pharmacy pharmacists are hopeful that billable opportunities will increase in the future.
Even though the grant has ended, the pharmacists at Goodrich Pharmacy still offer pharmacogenomic testing services and interpretation. In addition to adults, they have had an increasing number of referrals for pediatric patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
In addition to gaining a wealth of knowledge about mental health medications, the pharmacists and residents learned about other drugs from pharmacogenomic testing, too. For example, “[clopidogrel (Plavix)] is a prodrug that is converted to its active metabolite through the 2C19 pathway,” Davis explained. “In patients who are poor metabolizers of 2C19, [clopidogrel] would not be as effective, leading to a higher risk of cardiovascular events. The patient would have to take [ticagrelor (Brilinta)] or a different antiplatelet medication.”
Hulke mentioned that many medications could be affected by enzymes, such as warfarin, which is metabolized by multiple enzymes, and protein pump inhibitors like omeprazole. However, there isn’t always a change in medication therapy that is recommended because of this.
Can pharmacists apply pharmacogenomics to their practice? Absolutely, but it may take a lot of studying, Davis and Hulke said.
They recommend obtaining a pharmacogenomics certificate, which can be done through programs such as the National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ “Test2Learn” program. Pharmacists can also attend conferences and classes on the topic for more information. By doing so, pharmacists can help patients make sure their medications are working based on genetics.
Davis and Hulke have a call to action for pharmacists. “Never stop learning. Pharmacogenomics is a great service we can offer to our patients,” Davis said.
“If you are interested in and passionate about pharmacogenomics, take the time to learn about it and consider offering it as a service to your patients,” Hulke added.
The Community Pharmacy Foundation (CPF) funds innovative ideas to advance the practice of pharmacy in the community setting. CPF is committed to transforming community-based pharmacy practice beyond filling prescriptions to a focus on providing patient care as a founding sponsor of the national Flip the Pharmacy program.
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An article published in October 2020, on “the voice of Morgantown, WAJR” entitled, “Area law enforcements honored” mentions how FBI agent Matt Eagles, and DEA agent Guy McCartney, were honored by U.S. Attorney Bill Powell, for, amongst other things, bringing me down. It mentions how the investigation started in 2015, and how they reviewed over 600,000 documents, and included healthcare fraud. What is comical is that yes, they literally harassed thousands of patients. These patients were threatened not to tell me, but they did. I would get about 7 calls a day. One patient commented on how some “suit” forced themselves into their home and tried to get them to testify against me. They did not ask questions, they were told what to do and say. They were trying to coerce some of the female patents into saying that I made sexual advances at them. WOW! All it would have taken was one disgruntled women to put me away for life! But kudos to these women, they held their ground. We are talking thousands. But the agents failed to get anyone to say this.
They spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars looking for insurance fraud. They raided my home–which my autistic son witnessed–as well as all of my offices. Recall that they raided the infusion companies that I used dozens of times, spent millions assuming that I was getting financial kick backs, but failed to show proof. When the indictments came down, this was not part of the indictment because they failed. But yet they are getting praised for this? Praised for what? Being stupid morons?
They also tried to accuse me of illegally billing for urine drug screens. They failed on this. Literally lied.
Despite reviewing 600,000 records, harassing hundreds into testifying against me, they only convinced 2 to testify against me, and had to bring in six witnesses that had nothing to do with anything. One of the latter testified that I cursed at her and stomped my foot in anger. That was it. A criminal action if I ever heard one. The jury bought it, but the appellate court literally called this action a disgrace. Note that we were supposed to have oral arguments, but the appellate court said they were not needed because this “piling on” of witnesses was a disgrace. Yet, these guys are praised as heroes. For what, their efforts to bring down a Hispanic male physician?
What was comical to me as well was how they accused me of having about 800 patients who failed drug screens. OK? I reviewed every one of these charts which took me a week. Not only were they not part of the indictment, but the opioids were stopped in all of them. These were younger patients with real issues, but they were not deathly ill, so I referred them out to pain clinics. As the appellate court said, “piling on”.
When all was said and done, they imprisoned me literally for the false accusation of calling an epileptic with abnormal EEG and dozens of witnessed seizures an epileptic and stated she was passing out due to oxycodone 10 mg three times a day. I was incarcerated 48 months for this, which doesn’t surprise me since I am a Hispanic male practicing in West Virginia. Jury bought it, but not the appellate court.
So, I guess this is how the governing bodies in West Virginia do things. You are guilty if we don’t like you no matter what, and we will give praises and awards regardless of outcome to those that hurt you and your family even if falsely accused. To me this personifies not just arrogance, but stupidity. This is the foundation of racism and bigotry, which is what the governing officials here, I guess, are all about. Kudos to the people of West Virginia for not being coerced into causing me the harm that they wanted to cause, such as being accused of being a rapist. The story of how Heather Bresch, the daughter of Joseph Manchin lied about an educator at WVU to get a powerful position at Mylan personifies how the governing body in West Virginia does things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_University_M.B.A._controversy).. It defies all logic how, despite the fact that she got caught, not only did she get the position anyway, but still holds that position. Under her watch, millions were harmed due to the whole epipen controversy but she continues to live a lavish life in Sewickly, Pennsylvania and continues as CEO of Mylan. If she would have been a physician, she would have been in prison for life.. You have to see her home!
Born in Cuba, Felix moved to New Jersey when he was two years old. He played football and wrestled for Rutgers University. He graduated medical training at the now-named Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine and did his residency in neurology. His medical practice was located in Morgantown, WV and Connellsville, PA. He has teaching experience, serving as department chair at Temple University and teaching attendant at the West Virginia school of Osteopathic Medicine. He has done investigative studies with epilepsy and multiple sclerosis and served as chief investigator for a study of postpolio syndrome and chronic fatigue. He was also a chief investigator in a study involving the use of intravenous gamma globin for the treatment of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, entitled “Ivig and cidp, dose matters”. The paper was presented at a poster presentation in France. He has lectured overseas on the topic of cidp and immune neuropathy.
Felix will be teaching various health topics through our DoC course network. If interested in learning more, sign up below for our newsletter.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/948425
Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
Two-thirds of epidemiologists from leading academic institutions say the world will need new or modified vaccines for COVID-19 within a year, new research show..
In a survey of 77 epidemiologists from 28 countries by the People’s Vaccine Alliance, 66.2% predicted the world has a year or less before variants make current vaccines ineffective. The People’s Vaccine Alliance is a coalition of more than 50 organizations including African Alliance, Oxfam, Public Citizen, and UNAIDS.
Almost a third (32.5%) of those surveyed said ineffectiveness would happen in 9 months or less; 18.2% said 6 months or less.
Paul A. Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, told Medscape Medical News that while it’s hard to say whether vaccines could become ineffective in that timeframe, “It’s perfectly reasonable to think it could happen.”
The good news, said Offit, who was not involved with the survey, is that SARS-CoV-2 mutates slowly, compared with other viruses such as influenza.
“To date,” he said, “the mutations that have occurred are not far enough away from the immunity induced by your natural infection or immunization such that one isn’t protected at least against severe and critical disease.”
That’s the goal of vaccines, he noted: “to keep people from suffering mightily.”
“And so far that’s happening, even with the variants, Offit said. “That line has not been crossed. But I think we should assume that it might be.”
Offit said it will be critical to monitor anyone who gets hospitalized who is known to have been infected or fully vaccinated. Then countries need to get really good at sequencing those viruses, he added.
The great majority of those surveyed (88%) said that persistently low vaccine coverage in many countries would make it more likely that vaccine-resistant mutations will appear.
Coverage comparisons between countries are stark.
While rich countries are giving COVID-19 vaccinations at the rate of a person a second, many of the poorest countries have not given hardly any vaccines, the People’s Vaccine Alliance says.
Additionally, according to researchers at Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center, high- and upper-middle-income countries, which represent one-fifth of the world’s population, have bought about 6 billion doses. But low- and lower-middle-income countries, which make up four-fifths of the population, have bought only about 2.6 billion, an article in Nature reports.
“You’re only as strong as your weakest country,” Offit said. “If we haven’t learned that what happens in other countries can (affect the global population), we haven’t been paying attention.”
Gregg Gonsalves, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, one of the academic centers surveyed, didn’t specify a timeline for when vaccines would become ineffective, but said in a press release that the urgency for widespread global vaccination is real.
“Unless we vaccinate the world,” he said, “we leave the playing field open to more and more mutations, which could churn out variants that could evade our current vaccines and require booster shots to deal with them.”
Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, MHS, a Johns Hopkins pulmonologist whose research focuses on healthcare disparities, said the survey findings were “dire, but not surprising.”
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, was another of the centers surveyed, but Galiatsatos wasn’t personally involved with the survey.
COVID-19, Galiatsatos points out, has laid bare disparities, both in who gets the vaccine and who’s involved in trials to develop the vaccines.
“It’s morally concerning and an ethical reckoning,” he told Medscape Medical News.
Recognition of the borderless swath of destruction the virus is exacting is critical, he said.
The United States “has to realize this can’t be a US-centric issue,” he said. “We’re going to be back to the beginning if we don’t make sure that every country is doing well. We haven’t seen that level of uniform approach.”
He noted that scientists have always known that viruses mutate, but now the race is on to find the parts of SARS-CoV-2 that don’t mutate as much.
“My suspicion is we’ll probably need boosters instead of a whole different vaccine,” Galiatsatos said.
Among the strategies sought by the People’s Vaccine Alliance is for all pharmaceutical companies working on COVID-19 vaccines to openly share technology and intellectual property through the World Health Organization COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, to speed production and rollout of vaccines to all countries.
In the survey, 74% said that open sharing of technology and intellectual property could boost global vaccine coverage; 23% said maybe; and 3% said it wouldn’t help.
The survey was carried out between February 17 and March 25. Respondents include epidemiologists, virologists, and infection disease specialists from the following countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, France, Guatemala, India, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Norway, Philippines, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Uganda, United Kingdom, US, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Offit and Galiatsatos reported no relevant financial relationships.
Marcia Frellick is a freelance journalist based in Chicago. She has previously written for the Chicago Tribune, Science News and Nurse.com and was an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times. Follow her on Twitter at @mfrellick
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Any healthcare worker who does not have prescriptive authority and goes against prescriber’s orders… could this apply to insurance/PBM companies, large hospital corporations that implement policies and procedures that force their employed prescribers to reduce or entirely titrate a pt completely off their pain management therapy or a number of other reasons that will complicate the pt’s co-morbidity issues … resulting in degrading the pt’s QOL or even being fatal for the pt. Could these various entities be charged with practicing medicine without a license? According to this article these entities could be charged with a felony.
CLARKSVILLE, Ind. — A nurse is facing charges after an investigation into oxygen being removed from a Clarksville nursing home resident who died hours later.
In a report by the Indiana Department of Health and Human Services, officials said a resident at Wedgewood Healthcare Center tested positive for COVID-19 around April 24, 2020.
According to the nurse’s notes, the resident’s O2 levels dropped as low as 65%. The nurse started high flow oxygen, but “eventually discontinued it, after which the resident passed away 7 hours and 45 minutes later.”
The report said the nurse, identified as Connie Sneed in court documents, did not notify the physician of the patient’s declining condition or the discontinuation of high flow oxygen. In an interview, the nurse said she “forgot to contact” the physician.
The physician was only notified, by another nurse, that the resident had passed away the next morning.
“[I was] taking care of over 40 COVID patients, and the week that I had had was terrible, and that is one thing I forgot to do was call the doctor,” the nurse said.
An advanced practice registered nurse who practiced at the center said she wanted to send the resident to the hospital, and the resident said he wanted to go to the hospital, on April 28, but the nurse said she had discussed it with his family and they did not want him to be sent out.
The court documents said a Facebook post made by the nurse (Connie Sneed) said she asked the resident, who the report says suffers from dementia, if he wanted her to take it off and “let you go fly with the angels” and “he said yes.”
“I took it all off of him I went in the hallway and I cried and I let him go and he passed away 1 hour and 45 minutes after I left,” the nurse posted.
Sneed had been an employee at the center for 15 years when the incident happened, documents state.
In an interview, the nurse said she told the resident’s daughter, who has power of attorney, the oxygen was “prolonging the inevitable,” and the daughter told her if it was his wish, she could remove the mask.
The resident’s daughter told investigators she received a call from the nurse saying he was not doing well, and that if they sent him to the hospital he would get the same treatment the facility’s already doing, so the family said to keep him there.
The nurse then called to say the resident was not keeping the mask on. The daughter said she told the nurse to let him calm down and then put the mask back on him, and the nurse told her she would try, but could not force him to keep it on. The next morning, she received a call saying her father had died.
The report said the nurse has been fired and reported to the Indiana Board of Nursing. Additionally, the report said Wedgewood would be taking steps to prevent an event like that from happening again, including increased rounds to identify any changes in condition, daily reviews of all nursing notes and increased education on the care plan process.
Clarksville police confirmed they opened an investigation into the situation May 4, 2020, after being called by the Executive Director at Wedgewood. Clarksville police said they also contacted the Indiana Attorney General’s Office on May 6 to begin the process to transfer the investigation there.
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