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VA NURSE CUTS DEAL AND WON'T GET JAIL TIME --
Turned off a monitoring machine leading to the
death of a World War II veteran.
Pulse-Oximeter
Story here...
http://www.denverpost.com/
news/ci_5604756
Story below:
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VA nurse won't get jail
WWII vet died under her care
By Bruce Finley
Denver Post Staff Writer
A former nurse who pleaded guilty to turning off a monitoring machine in
a Denver federal hospital - leading to the death of a World War II
veteran - was ordered Thursday to serve 16 months' probation and pay
$5,967 in funeral costs.
The sentence for Carol Elkins, 60, was part of a deal with federal
prosecutors in which she promised never to work in health care again.
The government investigated itself in this case of criminally negligent
patient care at the Veterans Affairs hospital on Clermont Street.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Lewis Babcock called it one of the most
vexing cases he's had, one involving a hardworking, religious mother who
did little wrong all her life before her mistake in July 2003.
Babcock said investigators probing how Elkins disabled a pulse-oximeter
that was irritating her also found "inconsistencies" in how Veterans
Affairs supervisors handle verbal warnings about potentially deadly
treatment of patients.
He noted Elkins has cooperated with federal officials trying to correct
systemic problems "at a critical time" for U.S. armed forces.
Relatives of Army veteran William Leslie, who died after he went into
respiratory distress, reacted bitterly to the sentence.
"The judge turned his back on my stepdad, just like Carol Elkins did,"
Teresa Housley- Smith, 51, said outside the courtroom.
"That sends a message to everyone out there: Just pretend you forgot
something. Then, you can get away with murder. ... This is the kind of
care our (Iraq war) veterans are going to get."
After Leslie died, Elkins kept working as a nurse for more than a year
at an Aurora facility until she was indicted in December 2005 on an
involuntary manslaughter count in the death of Leslie, a 76-year-old
retired Wyoming law enforcement officer suffering from a pneumonia- like
sickness.
The monitoring machine she disabled - and then forgot to turn on again -
would have alerted hospital staff that the level of oxygen in Leslie's
blood was dangerously low.
Nurses later found Leslie in a state of respiratory distress from lack
of oxygen. Four months after the funeral, his family learned of
suspicious circumstances when a special agent called them at their home
in Cheyenne.
Elkins' attorneys had argued that she should not be barred from nursing.
"You said I failed as a nurse, and that's true," Elkins told Babcock in
the courtroom. "I was so proud to be a nurse. It's such an honor to take
care of God's people. And I can't do that anymore."
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Larry Scott --
