Four Connecticut Nursing Homes Fined, One For Wrongly Administering Opiates

By: Kate Farrish

Four nursing homes have been fined more than $1,000 each in connection with several incidents that included a resident drug overdose and two residents suffering broken bones.

Cambridge Manor of Fairfield was fined $1,380 on July 31, in connection with two incidents at the home, according to a citation by the state Department of Public Health.  In the first incident, on July 3, a resident was admitted to a hospital as unresponsive and suffering an overdose of opiates, the citation states. A DPH investigation determined that the resident had been given morphine and thyroid medicine by mistake, according to the citation.

William Gerrish, DPH’s spokesman, said the resident recovered and returned to Cambridge Manor.

In the second incident, on July 12, a resident with anxiety and dementia was left unattended in a wheelchair in the lobby, the citation said. The resident left the nursing home in the wheelchair without the staff’s knowledge and was found on Easton Turnpike. The resident suffered no injuries.   The home’s administrator, Bill Thompson, could not be reached for comment.

In another case, the Greenwich Woods Health Care Center in Greenwich was fined $1,300 for incidents involving three residents, including a case on March 4, in which a nurse found a resident with a bruised and swollen arm. The state citation said the resident was X-rayed and found to have a broken arm. An investigation found that the injury could have occurred when nursing home staff were lifting or repositioning the resident, the citation said.

On June 28, staff members discovered that a Greenwich Woods resident who was at risk for falls had fallen when an aide had left the person alone in a bathroom. Two days later, when the resident complained of chest pain, it was determined at a hospital that the resident had multiple rib fractures, the citation states.

On July 18, a Greenwich Woods resident who was considered at risk for injury when smoking was found to have five lighters in a bag in his or her room, the citation said. The lighters were supposed to be locked in a humidor in the room, records show.

Bill Coury, administrator of the Greenwich facility, said while the home did not agree with all of DPH’s findings, he was prohibited from discussing details of the incidents due to patient privacy laws.

“We’re always looking at our systems to make improvements,’’ he said.

DPH also fined the Rosegarden Health & Rehabilitation Center of Waterbury $1,860 on July 22, in connection with the hospitalization of a resident whose sodium levels were high. An investigation concluded that the resident had been given the wrong intravenous fluid on Nov. 12, 2012 after a nurse said she had a busy night and did not recognize that the wrong solution was used, the citation said. The patient recovered.

In another citation, DPH fined Regency Heights of New Britain $1,020 in connection with the verbal abuse of a resident by a nurse’s aide in March.