The Columbus Dispatch | Kevin Stankiewicz
Two employees of a Columbus nursing home and a nurse practitioner who was a contract worker there have been indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the neglect of two patients in 2017, Attorney General Dave Yost announced Thursday.
Four other employees at Whetstone Gardens and Care Center, located at 3710 Olentangy River Road on the city’s Northwest Side, also were indicted. A total of 34 charges were filed after an investigation determined that one patient died as a direct result of the neglect and the other patient, who is now deceased, was found to have suffered physical harm, Yost said. Neither patient was named…
In February 2017, a male patient who is believed to have died because of neglect developed serious wounds that turned gangrenous, Yost said. That patient was later taken to the hospital, where he died on March 5, 2017, from septic shock, which results after infections lead to dangerously low blood pressure.
“This man literally rotted to death and it could have been prevented,” Yost said.
A female patient at the facility did not receive care that nurses documented, the investigation by the attorney general’s office found.
“They said they provided it and they did not,” Yost said, adding that the patient’s medical records also had forged signatures and indicated the patient received care during times “when the patient wasn’t even in the facility.”
“Every one of us has a loved one or has had a loved one who’s been in a (nursing home) facility. We trust the doctors and the nurses and the staff at these facilities to care for those we love the most at their most vulnerable time in life,” Yost said.
“When they turn a callous eye and ignore what’s right in front of their faces and fail to provide the services and fail to provide for our loved ones, these are crimes of the worst sort. There’s no motivation for it,” he said.