Minnesota

Last edited Mon Jul 6, 2020, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

the above referenced story.

My client was a Haitian immigrant. Worked in nursing homes for more than two decades without a problem. Even worked in *two* nursing homes full time, back-to-back.

I got involved b/c my client was taking care of nine "residents" at one of her jobs. One of them was a 77 year old woman who was semi-bedbound. The resident never was angry or confrontational -- until one day during a "Family Meeting" with the center's social worker, the resident announced that my client was abusing her. It started with an unfounded charge of getting her foot crushed between a Hoyer Lift and the bed and then she kept adding 14 other charges of emotional, psychological, and institutional abuse -- all within a 90-minute period of time.

What made it racist were the particular charges of the resident felt abused when she heard my client speaking Haitian to another nurse's aide and how my client allegedly would survey what was on the resident's lunch tray, help herself to whatever she wanted, ate it, and then sat down in a chair and fell asleep.

Long story short: It took three hearings and a closing argument of 24 pages, but I saved my client's certification from being permanently revoked, IOW, that the Department of Health on behalf of the resident couldn't prove their allegations.

My client told me that the same resident would moan that she needed money to buy her adult son a new car and a house. My guess is that she was using my client as the first step to suing the nursing home for negligent hiring and a myriad of abuse. If I hadn't volunteered my services, it's likely she would have gotten a nice settlement to go away.