Nursing home accused of causing patient's death
Created: Tuesday, 17 Jun 2008, 9:45 PM EDT
WILLIAMSBURG, VA. (MyFox Hampton Roads) -- "Tell me about your mom."
Those five words were MyFox Hampton Roads' first question to Bob Wiggins. Through the tears that immediately filled his eyes, Bob Wiggins said, "My mother, she was always a giving person throughout her life."
Lorina Ann Wiggins is gone. She lost her life on March 28 of this year. Her son Bob says some of the pain comes from believing she should not have died.
"I know my mother's 83 years old but she still, to be honest with you, she would've been alive," he said.
Lorina Wiggins was a resident at Ruxton Health of Williamsburg. A week before she died, Bob Wiggins says he demanded staff members send her to the hospital.
He explained what he saw in her room on March 20: "I went over to her, uncovered her leg and saw a bandage that was about two inches down from her knee all the way down to her ankle... It looked like a child who had been out playing in the yard with a pair of white socks on, dirty, nasty looking. That's what it looked like," he said.
The next day at Sentara Williamsburg hospital, Bob Wiggins says he saw what was under the bandage. "I'm looking down, I'm seeing bone coming through my mother's ankle bone and her tendon and her leg," he cried.
Wiggins called the police, and the Virginia Department of Health. He says doctors told him his mother was very ill... that Lorina Wiggins was about to die.
Wiggins' attorney is preparing to file a civil suit against the nursing home.
As far as a criminal case: the Williamsburg - James City County Commonwealth's Attorney Nathan Green told MyFox Hampton Roads his office is still investigating. Medical records were sent to an independent physician in Northern Virginia. Green said it is not clear when that part of the investigation will be complete, but "at this point there is nothing that leads me to believe criminal charges are warranted."
Abridged
SOURCE: MyFoxHamptonRoads
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The details of the case are just unimaginable and horrible. Please go to Source for more details.
It is inexcusable that now and again, terrible cases of neglect and abuse occur in Care Homes. No wonder many rather be at home and face the emotional/psychological abuse from family members than to go to a care home.
Majority of nursing homes or care factilities are doing a great job in looking after the frail seniors. It is really up to operators of those homes to come up with positive image-building campaigns. At the moment, we only get the horrible cases reported. --- AC
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