ALBANY, N.Y. – A hidden surveillance camera enabled authorities to arrest nine employees of the Hollis Park Manor Nursing Home in Queens on charges of patient neglect and fraud.
The arrested employees, including the medical director of the nursing home, two licensed practical nurses and six nurse aides, were monitored by a camera secretly installed in a patient’s room.
Camera footage shows the nine employees failing to provide the patient with adequate care in a number of areas, including physician-ordered range-of-motion therapy, incontinence care, eating assistance (at times the patient went without eating or drinking at all) and administration of prescribed medications.
Furthermore, the employees attempted to conceal their neglect by falsifying patient records to indicate that they had provided the required patient care when, in reality, they had not.
The former medical director of Hollis Park Manor Nursing Home, Dr. Howard Cohn, is being charged with two counts each of endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, willful violation of health laws and falsification of business records in the first degree. The first two charges are misdemeanors, and the third is an E felony with a maximum prison term of four years.
The other employees are each being charged with one count of endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person and willful violation of health laws, as well as falsifying business records in the first degree.
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said this is the third nursing home his office has surveilled using covert CCTV. These nine nursing home employees are among 19 in the state currently facing charges, and another nine have already been convicted based on evidence procured by hidden cameras.
