Tampa Nursing Home Abuse Case – Media Coverage

Head nurse fired 5 times previously

Pasco Times
Date: June 1, 1997
By: William R. Levesque
New Port Richey


NEW PORT RICHEY- Park Lake Village Care Center’s director of nursing knows what it’s like to have to find a new job.

Jane Fecteau has been fired from four previous director of nursing jobs and a nursing position, according to the transcript of a sworn deposition she gave Dec. 10, 1996.

When Fecteau applied for director of nursing at Park Lake in 1994, did her employment history bother Park Lake administrator Betty Breden?

Not at all.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference to you in deciding to hire Ms. Fecteau that she had been terminated from five prior…positions?” an attorney asked Breden in a deposition.

“No,” she answered.

“ What kind of criteria do you consider when you are hiring someone for a managerial position at park Lake?

“ The work history,” Breden said.

Breden said the administrator of a nursing home that had fired Fecteau told her that she “wasn’t a disciplinarian… as far as follow-through with possibly writing up nurses for things they had done wrong.”

Breden, however, said that comment only bothered her “somewhat…I figured since I was aware of it I would keep my eyes open for it.”

Breden said she had not noticed any problem with Fecteau’s failing to be a disciplinarian at Park Lake.

Fecteau, who did not return a call seeking comment, said she was asked to resign from her last position, at Shore Acres Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in St. Petersburg, because the administrator was dissatisfied with a state survey of the center.

Fecteau said she could not recall any reason for her firing by two other previous employers. Of one administrator who fired her, Fecteau said, “She was dissatisfied, I guess.”

Bay to Bay Nursing Center in Tampa fired Fecteau in May 1993 for failing to keep a copy of her printed license on file at the nursing home, Fecteau said.

Did Breden call the chief of operations at Bay to Bay to confirm the reason for termination?

“Absolutely not,” Breden said.

That chief of operations also fired Breden in August 1994 because, Breden said, she was unaware of a week’s vacation from which Breden had just returned.

· · ·

Anne Nobrega, a former Park Lake nurse, said nurses at Park Lake often made notations in the charts of patients at the end of their shift. Their workload, she said, prevented them from doing so as treatments and medications were administered.

“The problem with nursing is that …you’re so busy doing your job in getting things done, the charting is usually one of the things that usually ends up getting done toward the end of the day,” she said at deposition.

I might say that I’ve been in nursing for 31 ½ years and it is most often impossible to sit down at the times that things happen and make entries exactly at the time that they happen,” she said.

At Park Lake, nurses were certainly busy.

Nobrega said the facility did not employ enough nurses. When she worked, she often got home late, she said.

“The work was too overwhelming for one nurse,” she said.

“There was always too much work.”

· · ·

Decubitis ulcers, commonly called bed sores, are one of the most dangerous hazards facing people confined to a bed.

They can form whenever pressure is applied to the skin, making them common for those confined to a bed for long periods.

Untreated, the ulcers can lead to life-threatening infections.

Park Lake disputes that Reiher ever had a decbitis ulcer on her foot.

The nursing home’s records only cloud the picture.

Park Lake officials acknowledge that they maintain a decubitis ulcer file for any patient with such a wound. The file contains a picture of the wound and descriptions of the ulcer.

Park Lake records indicate that such a file existed for Reiher. But when her attorneys requested it, the nursing home said it could find no such file.

Park Lake says its records indicating that a decubitis file existed are in error.

Trentalange, Reiher’s attorney, said he thinks a file on the ulcer would have demonstrated the severity of the untreated infection.

But Park Lake officials told Trentalange that Reiher developed a different type of skin ulcer on her ankle- an ulcer that does not required a picture or separate file.

When Park Lake released to Reiher’s attorney’s a copy of her medical file, references that Reiher had a decubitis ulcer on her foot had been crossed out.

For instance, on Aug, 14, a nurse wrote that Reiher had a Stage II “decub on L outer ankle.”

The references, however, was crossed out. “ Error,” someone wrote. “Not a decub. It is a scratch.”

In March 1996, Reiher lost a battle to infection and part of her leg was amputated.

“I’ve lost faith in the medical profession,” her husband said in an interview. “The things that go on inside a nursing home are hard to comprehend.”