“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.” – Douglas Larson

Recently, nursinghomesabuseadvocate.com published an article on its website with the headline, “Wood Memorial Nursing and Rehabilitation Center; facility failed to protect each resident from all types of abuse such as physical, mental, sexual abuse, physical punishment, and neglect by anybody.” 

The website states, “Resident became unresponsive and drooling at nursing station; CPR not initiated; pronounced dead at facility.” The website goes on to site state findings and a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services state report that were incomplete. 

An area TV station repeated the news on their website Jan. 8 with a link imbedded in the story to take readers back to Nursing Homes Abuse Advocate. The next day, a local radio station repeated the news.

However, there is more to the story. The state survey being sited was from an incident that occurred on, and was dated for, May 25, 2018.

According to the director of nurses at Wood County Memorial Nursing Facility in Mineola, the long-term resident was never abused, neglected or left alone. The staff did everything they could do.

The resident in question had finished her evening meal and was taken to the nursing station. She was often placed in her chair beside the nursing station because, even though she was too weak to stand, she would try to get out of her chair and walk. 

Only minutes later, a nurse noticed that she was drooling and asked an aide to wipe her mouth. When she did, the resident did not respond and looked to be falling asleep. 

A nurse and an aide took the resident to her room and moved her to the bed. At that time, feeling that something wasn’t right, the nurse asked the aide to go get the other nurse. The two of them assessed the patient. The nurse noticed the resident’s blood beginning to pool and attempted to start CPR. The resident did not respond. 

“When your blood pools, it pools quickly. Her blood was already starting to pool. The nurse did a circle rub and attempted CPR. The woman did not respond. They found out that she was a full code. However, her blood had already pooled and they couldn’t get her head to move back to administer CPR. The nurse called me and I came up here. I called the family and the doctor. The doctor said to call the justice of the peace. The JP said that if two RNs pronounce her expired, she is expired. The doctor said that if the JP says she is expired, she is expired. I contacted everyone who needed to be contacted, even a state surveyor,” disclosed the director of nurses in regard to the steps taken the day of the occurrence.

At the time of the incident, the nurse had to go to the nurses station to determine if the patient was full code, meaning to take all measures necessary, or DNR, meaning do not resuscitate.

Administrator Lavonia Stone said she realized this took precious seconds away. 

That day, she put steps in place to correct the situation. There is now a system that tells nurses immediately upon entering a room whether the patient is full code or DNR. Also as part of the correction, every nurse in the facility is CPR certified. 

“On that day, I only had one nurse that was not certified and she was done by that evening. The ones that were certified had to go back through the class. Many of the aides have gone above and beyond to get certified too,” added the director of nurses. 

“We put the system in place the day all of this happened, and the state surveyors were satisfied with it and left the building,” states Stone.

The nursing facility has been deficiency free since the incident in May 2018.

“We have had none related to anything of this nature,” reiterates Stone.

Later in 2018, a survey was completed showing no deficiencies and in 2019, the annual survey listed no deficiencies as well. The nursing facility has also done several self-reports within the past two years.

According to the director of nurses, the facility is not understaffed. Recently she has hired more registered nurses.

At any given time, there are four nurses, three medicine aides, a shower aide, a treatment nurse and six certified nursing assistants on the floor. The nursing facility also has a director of nurses who is always on call, an assistant director of nurses and two minimum data set nurses. 

They have daily visits from local doctors including a psychologist, a wound care doctor and nurse practitioners. A contracted therapy department also comes in daily.

Wood County Memorial is preparing for its next inspection and state survey. The nursing facility is in its “open window” time frame and the surveyors may come unannounced any time. 

During the survey, if everything is not up to state code, the surveyors will not leave the building until a plan of correction is done and accepted.