Virginia nursing board enters findings of abuse against four former nurse aides
All the details in our Health Safety stories come from publicly available Final Orders, Consent Orders, Orders of Suspension and other documents from the Virginia Department of Health Professionals. For more information, see the Editor’s note below the story.
Digging through decisions from the Virginia Board of Nursing will often turn up the phrase “finding of abuse.” For the following four nursing aides, the finding was accompanied by the board revoking or declining to reinstate their licenses.
In September 2019, April Ingrid Gibson was feeding a patient in her care at Monroe Health and Rehabilitation in Charlottesville. The patient was quadriplegic, paralyzed in all four limbs because of a cervical spinal cord injury.
She had been feeding the patient for an hour and twenty minutes. Gibson felt the patient was eating too slowly and an argument broke out between the two. Gibson raised her middle finger at the patient and shouted “f*** you.” Her supervisor told her to stay out of the patient’s room. She did not listen, instead returning and inciting another verbal altercation between herself and the patient.
The board handled the incident over three years later, in November 2022. Gibson’s license was revoked and a finding of abuse was entered against her in December 2022.
One interaction can be enough to have a license revoked, if it’s reported and adequately handled. In August 2021, Susan Carolyn Simon was working at The Laurels of Charlottesville. She was caring for a 78-year-old man and had reached a boiling point. Three other nurse aides were on shift, and each saw Simon standing in the hallway in front of the patient’s door.
“Quit your d*** yelling,” she yelled.
“Sit your a** down,” she yelled.
“Keep your f****** a** in bed, this is why you keep falling,” she yelled.
Not long after the incident, the patient was discharged to the hospital for “altered mental status.”
The Virginia Board of Nursing entered a finding of abuse again Simon and revoked her license in September 2022.
Swearing at patients is part of what leads to findings of abuse against medical practitioners, but it is not the key component. As an alternative example, Jennifer Marie Bookard Smith was working at Royal Care at Birch Ridge in Staunton in April 2022.
She was caring for a patient with a history of falling. His medical history included a cerebrovascular accident, meaning there’s damage to the blood vessels in his brain. This can impair a patient’s sense of balance and their motor control of their own body.
Smith told the patient to stop ringing his call bell, how patients would get the nurse aide’s attention. He told her he had to go to the restroom. She asked him how he was going to get to the bathroom by “standing there on his knees.” She told him to get up just like he got down.
“Don’t be acting crazy,” she said. “Act like you got some sense.”
Smith was fired in May 2022 for the incident. The board reviewed an audio recording of the interaction during a March 2023 conference. A finding of abuse was entered in June 2023, and Smith’s license was also revoked.
Ashley Greene was working with a patient at Envoy of Staunton in March 2014. She was cleaning the patient but used the wrong type of lift to raise the patient. Greene didn’t wipe the resident before putting her in clean briefs. Greene also spoke to the patient in “a gruff manner.”
When contacted by the board’s representative, Greene said she did not intend to speak in a gruff manner. She cried and expressed remorse over the incident. The board reprimanded her but allowed her to keep working.
In August 2022, the board was considering reinstating Green’s license. It was not a clean application. While she was working at Augusta Nursing and Rehab Center in Fishersville, two residents came forward to say Greene was harsh and demeaning with them. Both were hesitant to call for help while she was on shift, with one preferring to hold in her need to use the restroom overnight over calling Greene.
Augusta held an internal investigation. Greene’s coworkers confirmed she was gruff, demeaning, and humiliating to patients. Her coworkers had already asked her to adjust her tone. Another investigation by the Staunton Department of Social Services found there was evidence to support the mental abuse allegations.
Greene also lied on her reinstatement application, leaving off the 2015 reprimand and a 2008 conviction of misdemeanor use of profane, threatening, or indecent language over public airways in the Augusta County General District Court. The board declined her reinstatement application, then entered a finding of abuse against Greene in September 2022.
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To file a formal complaint against a health professional, click here. For links to the public information informing this story, see below.
Want to know if your doctors, other medical professionals or local pharmacies have been investigated? Check out the license lookup.
EDITOR’S NOTE: When citizens are a danger to the public safety, law enforcement arrests them and charges them with crimes; they have the opportunity to face a jury of their peers; if convicted, they serve time and/or probation that can often ensnare them in the system for years.
When a medical professional is an alleged danger to the public safety, the Virginia Department of Health Professionals handles all facets of the inquiry, including the investigation and penalties. And sometimes, even when a medical professional is found liable of doing harm to patients, they may face a reprimand, pay a fine and continue to practice, without missing a day of work and with little chance for the public to see what they’ve done.
The Health Safety stories in this series tell the facts of cases where medical professionals endanger our public health safety. They also bring you into the world of the medical board’s consent orders and public final orders, so you can see exactly how the VDHP’s self-policing system works.
Lyra Bordelon (she/her) is the public transparency and justice reporter at The News Leader. Do you have a story tip or feedback? It’s welcome through email to [email protected]. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.
This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Nursing board enters finding of abuse against four former nurse aides
