A nurse’s aide at North Shore Hospital’s rehabilitation center in Manhasset was arrested on Wednesday for slapping an elderly dementia patient across the face and later lying about the incident in reports to her superiors, according to a news release from the state attorney general’s office.
Rose Marie Hall faces up to four years in prison for the Jan. 26, 2013 incident, in which officials said she was seen striking a 78-year-old woman suffering from dementia and a host of other ailments, and then submitting falsified statements to her employers at the Stern Family Center for Rehabilitation, according to a news release from the attorney general’s office.
Hall, 53, of 167-25 147th Street in Queens, was arraigned in First District Court in Hempstead before Judge Douglas LeRose on felony charges of endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person and two counts of falsifying business records. She was released on a $300 cash bail.
The case is being tried by Special Assistant Attorney General James P. Clarke of Schneiderman’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. Efforts to reach Hall’s attorney were unavailing.
“Health care workers in New York have a solemn responsibility to care for their patients,” state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “Striking an elderly nursing home resident suffering from dementia and other serious conditions and then lying about it are crimes that we will not tolerate. If necessary, my office will pursue criminal charges in order to bring justice to elderly and disabled victims and their families.”
According to the criminal complaint against Hall, a nurse’s aide at the center reported seeing the patient “crying and holding her face” after the incident took place. The patient asked Hall what happened, the aide said, and she replied that the patient slapped Hall and Hall then slapped her back.
Hall signed a report on Jan. 26, 2013 as part of the North Shore-LIJ Health System’s investigation that said only she was slapped in the face, but North Shore Director of Nursing Barbara Geraghty reported to the attorney general’s investigators that Hall’s account was inaccurate, according to the criminal complaint.
Hall also denied that she slapped the patient during a subsequent oral report given to North Shore nurse supervisor Christine Wildman.
During Schneiderman’s investigation, Hall told Special Investigator Stephen Clarke on April 30, 2013 that no physical contact between herself and the patient ever took place.
When asked about the Jan. 26, 2013 written report she gave to the health system, Hall said she signed the statement but told Clarke the report was not true.
