@@facebook=
@@
Timeline of teen’s starvation case:
March 1, 2011: Makayla Norman dies at Children's Medical Center of Dayton. Staff alerts Dayton police of the suspicious nature of her death
Sept. 2: Montgomery County Coroner rules Makayla's death a homicide by reason of medical and nutritional neglect
Nov. 17: Makayla's mother and three nurses are indicted by a grand jury and arrested. Angela Norman and Mollie Parsons, a licensed practical nurse, are indicted on involuntary manslaughter and held on $250,000 bond.
Dec. 13: Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman denies Parsons' request for a lower bond, citing the horrific nature of the crime and the weight of evidence.
Jan. 9 : Ohio Department of Job and Family Services terminates its Medicaid contract with Dayton-based Exclusive Home Health Care, which employed Parsons and a second nurse who oversaw Parsons. OSJFS also declined to extend its contract with Cincinnati-based CareStar, which employed the third nurse charged. CareStar was seeking a renewal of a five-year contract to manage the state's Medicaid clients who received medical home care.
April 18: Trial of Makayla's mother and three nurses scheduled
Complaints of misconduct against nurses are taking more than a year for the Ohio Board of Nursing to investigate — allowing some of the nurses to continue to care for patients while under investigation — because complaints have skyrocketed in recent years.
The number of complaints against nurses is climbing, causing the backlog in investigations before the state nursing board’s disciplinary system, a Dayton Daily News investigation has found.
“If they get fired, they can just go somewhere else and the other agencies, they don’t know their ethics or what they’re like,” said Judy Patak of Beavercreek.
Patak complained to the board in January 2011 that a nurse who was taking care of her severely disabled husband had poked and treated him improperly during a feeding. There has been no hearing yet in the Patak case.
Nearly a year after 14-year-old Makayla Norman starved to death while receiving Medicaid-funded home care, one of the three nurses criminally charged for not reporting her poor health also hasn’t had a hearing yet with the Nursing Board.
The state’s nursing board said an allegation must be dealt with consideration for the nurse’s right to due process. “We are required to do a full investigation, and that requires interviewing witnesses, issuing subpoenas, gathering all the evidence we need for the cases because they are serious. They are serious violations. We want to have all the information that we need for the board to consider,” said Betsy Houchen, director of the nursing board.
But while that process has remained the same, the number of complaints has jumped in Ohio. The board received 6,880 complaints in fiscal year 2011, which ended June 30, putting it on pace for a double-digit increase in the state’s two-year accounting period. In the previous two-year period, there were 11,645 complaints. That number was 34 percent higher than from 2007-2008.
These complaints include allegations of substandard practice, drug theft, substance abuse, patient abuse and other criminal conduct.
Houchen said the number of complaints is fed by the growth of the industry and an increasing emphasis on reporting concerns. She said the state went from 210,000 licensed nurses in 2006 to 251,000 in 2011.
The Ohio Baord of Nursing can immediately suspend a nurse if they are convicted of a felony. In other times, the cases are investigated and then presented at one of six meetings the board holds each year.
“Perhaps the most significant challenge for the Board has been the steady and dramatic increase in disciplinary complaints in recent years,” according to the board’s most recent annual report.
Hidden camera reveals behavior
In January 2011, Judy Patak secretly set up a video camera to record home care nurse Theresa Horton feeding her husband. Patak said she did this because she had found cuts and bruises on her husband’s head and was worried that Horton was too rough with him.
The 10-minute video captured Horton shoving Patak’s husband, Steve, back in his chair when he would lean forward to swallow, and one time apparently flicking him in the face.
“She’s doing that when I’m in the house, and it’s only 10 minutes,” Patak said.
Horton was employed through the Springboro-based home care agency Greensprings Home Health Care. Agency owner Mir Ali said he terminated Horton after seeing the video, which he said contained “not compassionate treatment.”
CareStar, contracted by the state to oversee home care agencies, investigated the case and listed it as a “substantiated” case of “abuse.” This required Greensprings to provide additional staff training on compassionate care.
As an employer, Ali said it benefits him to have the disciplinary process for nurses be as air-tight and efficient as possible.
Horton now lives in North Carolina. She works in the medical field, though not as a nurse, according to her attorney, Julius Carter of Dayton. He said she was planning the move before the incident with the Pataks.
Carter said he has been in many informal negotiations to resolve the matter with the nursing board, which probably added time to the process.
The nursing board sent a notice to Horton on Sept. 23, 2011 — eight months and 10 days after the alleged abuse occurred. It accuses Horton of using “more force than necessary” to move Steve Patak, and said she admitted her “nursing practice was not up to acceptable standards.”
It also says Horton threatened to retaliate against Patak by claiming her son, a physician, illegally prescribed medication.
Horton has requested a hearing, though a date has not been set.
Patak said the experience has been upsetting because the home-care program that allowed her husband to stay in their home instead of at a nursing home has otherwise been a huge benefit.
Teen’s death leads to charges
When 14-year-old Makayla Norman died March 1, 2011, she was under the care of her mother and a licensed practical nurse hired by a local health care provider. Makayla’s care was monitored by two registered nurses. Yet the 14-year-old, stricken with cerebral palsy, bed-bound, unable to speak or hear, and fed through a tube — all paid for through taxpayer-funded Medicaid — died from “nutritional and medical neglect,” according to the Montgomery County Coroner. At her death, Makayla weighed 28 pounds.
“She was the worst malnourished child I think we’ve ever seen,” Ken Betz, director of the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory and Coroner’s Office, said in September 2011. The coroner ruled Makayla’s death a homicide.
The licensed practical nurse, Mollie Parsons of Dayton, remains in the county jail on $250,000 bond, along with Makayla’s mother, Angela Norman, following their November 2011 indictment on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Parsons voluntarily surrendered her license to the Nursing Board in August in lieu of any disciplinary action. The board permanently revoked her LPN license in September.
Parsons and Angela Norman face an April 18 trial on the felony charge.
Kathryn Williams of Clayton was the registered nurse hired by the local home health care provider to supervise Parsons’ care of Makayla. She was indicted in November 2011 for failing to provide care to a functionally impaired person and failing to report child abuse. She faces an April 18 trial. Williams has since asked the Nursing Board to move her RN license to inactive status.
The license for Mary Kilby, a registered nurse working for CareStar as Makayla’s case manager, remains active. As case manager, Kilby was supposed to ensure Makayla was receiving the care.
Kilby was indicted with others on charges of failing to provide care to a functionally impaired person and failing to report child abuse. She also faces an April 18 trial.
About the Author