Nurse Charged With Felony Elder Abuse
According to a report posted on Bakersfield.com, a nurse in a hospital has been arrested and charged with abuse of an elderly patient. 65-year-old Rene Gachon Gotico was arrested on the 23rd of August after the hospital employees reported the incident.
The 79-year-old patient was reportedly sitting on the edge of the bed requesting help to go to the bathroom. Gotico reportedly refused to help and even grabbed the elderly woman by the neck and pushed her back onto the bed when she attempted to stand on her own to go to the bathroom. The nursing supervisor saw the incident occur and immediately contacted the emergency room director. Sherriff’s Department officers were contacted thereafter and arrested Gotico.
When a person decides to live in a nursing home, it is an important decision because the care could be long term or short term. As a family safety and proper medical care is essential to the quality of life for the elderly residing in a home. When making this decision, it is extremely important that you look into the history of the facility including if there are any medical malpractice suits currently active against the facility or if there were any in the past. Medical malpractice is a very serious offense that can place your loved ones in an extremely dangerous situation depending on the severity.
Types of malpractice vary from overall negligence, physical, emotional or sexual abuse, medical abuse such as abuse of medications or improper regulation of an individual’s care (such as mismanagement of medicinal necessities, etc). The types of physical abuse can differ from situation and often people do not notice the physical implications of abuse, but it is important to take notice of these signs in order to stop future abuse from happening. Even something like keeping a person from using the bathroom, such as this incident, can be constituted as physical abuse.
