Mental Health Notes - News, Education and Advocacy

Elgin Mental Health Center Resident Dies: Homicide By Negligence

by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes on November 18th, 2008

Tammy Lewis may have recently received some good news, but Virdia Spain and Iluminada Tuzon most certainly have not.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Spain and Tuzon, employees of the Elgin Mental Health Center in Illinois, have each been “charged with a felony count of abuse of a long-term health-care facility resident” after a coroner’s jury ruled former patient Howard Morris’s death was “homicide by negligence.” (Hmm…seems like the felony charge should be, I don’t know, something related to “homicide by negligence” and not “abuse,” but, what do I know?)

Anyway, the story is that Morris was allergic to fish, but he was fed fish on June 20 - even though his fish allergy was noted in his chart and by special color-coded cards on his food tray - and died after going into anaphylactic shock.

Honestly. How careless and incompetent does a person have to be to miss chart notes and color-coded cards on the freaking food tray? I mean, aren’t these kinds of responsibilities listed in the employees’ job descriptions? Isn’t it their job to pay attention to stuff like this?!

People seek treatment - or, in some cases, are placed - in mental health hospitals because neither they nor their loved ones are skilled enough to take care of them given their particular illness. The whole point is for the person to receive proper care. Such incompetence and neglect on the part of someone who is supposed to be trained on how to take care of people makes me sick.

And, it’s nothing new. Which angers me even more.

Anyway, while I’m all for expressing my initial thoughts on the matter, I’m completely against media convictions. Spain and Tuzon have been summoned to appear at Kane County Circuit Court on November 20, so, we’ll see what happens.

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POSTED IN: Mental Health Notes