FORMER NURSE PLEADS GUILTY TO NEGLECT

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today that a former nursing home Registered Nurse, Carylon Haynes plead guilty to one count of neglect for failing to provide the necessary medical treatment to an 84-year-old nursing home resident who was in her care. Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge John Fader, II sentenced Haynes to one year in jail, the full term of which was suspended.

According to the Statement of Facts, on January 15, 2001, Haynes, 59, of the 11000 block of Westport Drive in Bowie, was the charge nurse at Chapel Hill Nursing Center in Baltimore County. At that time, she was in charge of the care of David S., an 84-year-old resident who suffered from advanced schizophrenia and at the time was catatonic. The nursing notes written by Haynes state that at around 2:00 a.m., she saw David S. begin to turn blue in his nail beds and lips, a change that often indicates that a person is not receiving sufficient oxygen. At that point, according to the standard of the nursing profession as well as Chapel Hill's own written policies, the required medical treatment for David S. was for Haynes to take the resident's full vital signs, including his temperature, pulse, blood pressure and breathing rate. In addition, she was required to call David S.'s physician for further instructions. No record of any vital signs, except for a reference to a temperature of 98.4 degrees, appears in the resident's nursing notes or any document created by Haynes related to David S.' care that morning. In addition, despite being aware of the resident's change in color, Haynes never called the resident's doctor to advise the doctor of the resident's change in status or to seek further instructions. Therefore, David S. went untreated and died four hours later. No autopsy was performed and thus the cause of death is undetermined.

This case was prosecuted by the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which has authority to prosecute vulnerable adult abuse and neglect in facilities that receive Medicaid funds.

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. has sponsored a series of Town Hall Meetings entitled "Protecting the Elderly: How to Detect and Prevent Elder Abuse". The next Town Hall Meeting will be held on October 23, 2002 at the College of Notre Dame. To register or for more information, please call 1 (866) 298-8245.

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