Failure to Prevent Verbal and Mental Abuse by CNA
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to protect residents from verbal and mental abuse by a CNA, resulting in substantiated abuse of two cognitively intact residents. One resident with Parkinson’s disease, which caused slow and deliberate movements, reported that around Christmas a CNA changed her brief after an incontinence episode while yelling at her, ignoring her request to slow down, and roughly turning her by grabbing the sheet and whipping her to the side, causing the resident to catch herself on the windowsill to avoid falling. The resident reported that the CNA called her “heavy,” stated “I don’t get paid enough to do this. My back hurts,” complained that the resident could not get into her wheelchair, and “bitched at me for not being able to get into my wheelchair.” The resident also reported that the CNA rolled her roughly onto her right side using the pad and that she overheard the CNA yelling to the night nurse about her. The resident later told a psychiatric provider she felt emotional discomfort following this interaction and that the CNA’s rough handling and failure to listen made her feel inconsequential. A roommate with intact cognition corroborated that the CNA was very loud and mean, yelled at the first resident during the brief change, and told her she could break her back changing her. This roommate stated she became nervous and scared, hid under her blanket, and did not speak up out of fear of what the CNA might do to her. An LPN reported that when the first resident activated her call light, the CNA, who “likes to talk loudly,” said out loud words to the effect of “what she wants now,” and vented loudly enough outside the closed door that the resident could hear, prompting the resident to call the nurses’ station and complain that if the CNA had time to talk, she had time to provide care. Another resident reported that the same CNA would enter his room in the middle of the night, slam on the lights without explanation, insist that care be done her way, yell at him and his cognitively impaired roommate, and talk down to them, leading to the CNA eventually being restricted from his room. The administrator later confirmed that, based on collected statements from the involved residents, the allegation of abuse was substantiated.
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