Nursing home employee mixed drug cocktails to quiet residents, report says
By Jeff Long Chicago Tribune reporter
September 25, 2008
An employee of a McHenry County nursing home at the center of an investigation into suspicious deaths mixed drug cocktails to make sure that troublesome residents "would not be bothering her during her shift," according to a state report.
The 130-page report of an investigation by the Illinois Department of Public Health says that improper use of drugs such as morphine sulfate contributed to five suspicious deaths in 2006 at the facility in Woodstock, then called the Woodstock Residence.
A supervisor allegedly told a nurse, "I do not care if you play the angel of death, just don't let me know about it," the report says.
"She won't make it through the day," the report says the nurse told a co-worker, referring to a restless patient. "I made sure of that."
Neither the supervisor nor the nurse is identified in the Department of Public Health report.
But two former nurses—one a supervisor—at the Woodstock Residence were indicted in April on criminal charges alleging they endangered the lives of residents.
The two were charged in April after an investigation by Illinois State Police, but they have never been accused of directly causing resident deaths.
The management of the facility, now called Crossroads Care Center of Woodstock, has changed since 2006.
Abridged
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
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