Local Nursing Homes Evaluate Policies After California Woman's Death
By: Meredith Hillgartner
Updated: March 5, 2013
87-year old Lorraine Bayless
collapsed in her dining room last Tuesday.
Barely breathing, her nurse called 911
but refused to perform CPR.
"If a person isn't properly trained
on how to do CPR they can actually do harm to the individual,"
Carassco said. "There are those
instances when an individual may be identified as a nurse, may even identify
themselves as a nurse, but indeed they do not have the qualifications."
Gilbert Carassco is the Executive
Director for the Carillon home here in
He held the same position at a home
in
"When I worked in
The nurse was acting under company
guidelines-and the home,
Carassco said companies prefer to
wait for emergency responders, rather than have employees attempt life saving
procedures.
"They would rather have the properly
trained individuals coming in and doing the proper procedures than having
someone who isn't trained doesn't have CPR [knowledge] or doesn't know how to
do it," Carassco said.
Carassco said the policy is not
unusual for homes in
"They are going to try and do the Good
Samaritan law, where they are going to go ahead and perform CPR just to be sure,"
Carassco said.
