New York Nursing Home Fined in Nun's Death - UPDATE
We discussed the tragic accident that ended Sister Mary Murray's life in a previous blog. On August 31, 2008, Sister Mary was found in her room "conscious but bleeding profusely from her forehead, face, and left eye" after an unbolted closet had fallen on her head. The wardrobe was still on top of her. The nun, who suffered from dementia and heart disease, was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital and then transferred to Westchester Medical Center, where she died.
Sister Mary's family was led to believe that it was a horrible accident until an Eyewitness News investigation revealed the cover up of previous accidents involving the closets. Two other individuals were previously injured in two separate incidents after the closets fell off the wall due to the facility's negligence in failing to bolt the facility's 300 closets to the wall. These incidents were not reported to the health department and Sister Mary's family was not told of the them. Ironically, after other individuals were injured, still no one bolted the closets to the wall. Daniel Murray, Sister Mary's guardian, said, "It went beyond negligence. It was more of a callous disregard of the safety of the most vulnerable among us, the elderly and the infirmed."
No one at Summit Park has been disciplined, although the State Department of Health fined the facility $17,000 due to "immediate jeopardy to resident health and safety". When Eyewitness News Investigator asked the Administrator of Summit Park Nursing Home why it took the death of Sister Mary to get the closets bolted down, the Administrator refused to answer.
The Rockland County District Attorney's Office has handed the case over to the attorney general for review.
