By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A spokesperson for the Kansas State Board of Nursing says the agency is exploring the possibility of suspending or revoking the license of a nurse who appears to have known that residents at an Andover nursing home were being abused but did not report it.
“No charges have been filed yet,” said Diane Glynn, practice specialist at the board. “But investigators are in the process of collecting and reviewing information, and they’ve been talking to potential witnesses. I can’t say much more than that.”
Glynn said the nurse, Jackalyn Laware, has been made aware of the investigation.
Laware was director of nursing at the Victoria Falls Nursing Facility, Andover, in September 2013 when video from a hidden camera recorded a night-shift nurse taking a resident from her wheelchair, placing her on the floor in her room and leaving her alone in the dark for almost 45 minutes.
The nurse in the video, later identified as 40-year-old Geofrey Nyangweso, has been charged with felony abuse of an adult. He pleaded not guilty to the charge in a hearing last week and remains free on $50,000 bond.
The board of nursing last week filed a petition to revoke Nyangweso’s license. “We’re in the discovery phase now,” said Mike Fitzgibbons, a special assistant attorney general assigned to the board. “A hearing is set for Sept. 23 and 24.”
The resident’s family shared the video with the Andover Police Department in late October, shortly after they moved the woman to another nursing home.
State inspectors learned of the video in March, prompting the Department for Aging and Disability Services to conduct an emergency review that eventually resulted in federal officials fining Victoria Falls at least $155,800 for failing to protect its residents.
The fine was announced May 14, shortly after KDADS officials learned that KAKE TV in Wichita had obtained a copy of the video and planned to air it. The station ran portions of the video in May.
During the KDADS review, which lasted from March 26 through April 28, surveyors learned that several nurses, aides and administrators had been aware of some employees being abusive toward residents. The workers said they had not reported their concerns because earlier reports had been ignored by their superiors.
In Kansas, state law requires nurses, aides and administrators to report incidents of suspected abuse, neglect and exploitation. Those who don’t risk losing their licenses.
Angela de Rocha, a KDADS spokesperson, said the agency is taking disciplinary action against some of the certified nurse aides who worked at Victoria Falls.
“The process is under way so we cannot release those names yet,” she wrote in an email to KHI News Service. “They have due process rights, and may request a hearing before the Office of Administrative Hearings.”
If the agency prevails, de Rocha wrote, the aides “will be prohibited from working in any adult care home in Kansas, and their names will be entered on the (KDADS) abuse registry.”
None of the aides are still working at Victoria Falls, she said.
‘Pending investigation’
In Kansas, nursing home administrators are licensed through the Board of Adult Care Home Administrators, which is housed at KDADS.
Clint Blaes, a spokesperson for Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office, declined comment on whether the adult care board would take action against Victoria Falls administrator Rebecca Murray.
“Our office cannot comment on a pending investigation,” Blaes said.
Beth King, a spokesperson for Victoria Falls, confirmed that Murray and Laware had “received inquiries from the board requesting follow-up information, which they have provided.”
Victoria Falls is owned and operated by Watercrest Communities and DB Consulting, Andover-based companies owned by Dennis and Debbie Bush.
According to the Watercrest Communities website, the company also owns Victoria Falls Assisted Living in Andover; Carrington at Cherry Creek, an assisted living facility in Wichita; and Carrington Health Center, a residential health care facility in Wichita.
KDADS, de Rocha said, will move to terminate the Bushes’ license if deficiencies cited in the latest survey are not corrected by Oct. 28.
King said the owners have implemented a plan for correcting the deficiencies and are waiting on the surveyors to return.
The Bushes, she said, “feel the facility is doing well.” King said current residents and their family members had assured her that the care at Victoria Falls is top-notch and they would recommend the facility to others “without reservation.”
Dennis Bush was mayor of Andover from April 1995 to April 2003.
Care plan
Bruce Swenson, a Derby attorney who represented Nyangweso during a brief board-of-nursing hearing last week, said Nyangweso’s actions were in keeping with the woman’s care plan.
“She spent a lot time of the floor. She wanted to be on the floor,” Swenson said. “And her care plan included situations where she could be left on the floor for limited periods to reduce the risk of falling.”
Nyangweso, he said, will argue that he did “what he was instructed to do by the care plan that both the facility and the family had put together.
“If you watch the video,” Swenson said, “you’ll see that he comes in, puts her on the floor and leaves. He doesn’t say anything, he’s not abusive. He just puts her on the floor and leaves, because that’s what he thought he was supposed to do.”
The woman’s care plan, which is outlined on pages 115 and 116 of the KDADS survey, notes: “The resident has a tendency to crawl on the floor which may be the resident’s way of independently moving from (one) area to another without needing to ask staff for help. Request family to assist and bring (resident) to activities.”
Dan Giroux, a Wichita attorney representing the resident’s family, said the care plan neither condones nor encourages staff to put the woman on the floor.
“Nothing like that is in there,” he said.
Giroux said the family may file a civil lawsuit against Victoria Falls. “Their major concern is not shutting the place down,” he said. “What they’re most interested in is making sure the deficiencies cited in the KDADS report – especially those having to do with the staffing ratios – get addressed in a way that makes it so that no one else has to go through what they’ve been through.”
Swenson said Topeka defense attorney Kenneth Miller will represent Nyangweso in upcoming appearances before the board of nursing and in Butler County District Court.