Four employees of a South Florida nursing home where a dozen people died amid sweltering heat in September 2017 were arrested and charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence, The Washington Post reports that police said Tuesday.
In announcing the charges, police officials assailed the four employees — the facility’s administrator and three nurses — and said the deaths were all avoidable and due to their behavior. “This was a terrible tragedy that never should have happened,” said Chris O’Brien, chief of police in Hollywood, Fla. The charges came nearly two years after the deaths at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, a nursing home not far from Fort Lauderdale, which overheated after Hurricane Irma swept through the region with powerful rain and wind. The deaths of the patients — who ranged in age from 57 to 99, with the oldest victim a few weeks away from turning 100 — sparked intense outrage as well as a round of finger-pointing over who was responsible and what happened. During hurricanes and other disasters, power outages are an acute threat to the elderly, who tend to be more susceptible to heat-related illnesses.
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The negligence of staff is found everywhere, every day in almost all institutions. What to do? Put everyone in jail? Or maybe just provide all the staff with everything necessary for their work? Look deeper, look at what the manual is doing!