A legless veteran died in his hospital bed last year after a nurse, who was assigned to check on him hourly, instead spent her shift playing video games.
Vietnam veteran and retired police detective Bill Nutter was being cared for at the Bedford VA Medical Center, one of the Veterans Administration’s top ranked hospitals, when his daughter, Brigitte Darton, went on a long-planned family vacation in July 2016.
The following day, she received a call from her mother saying, “Your father passed away,” Carol Nutter told the Boston Globe.
“He didn’t wake up.”
A doctor told Carol Nutter that an overnight staff member had failed to check on her father hourly.
The aide, Patricia Waible, later admitted to playing video games on her computer and never checking on Nutter, the Boston Globe reported.
A nurse reportedly announced Nutter’s death to hospital staff with a gesture signifying a slit throat.
The incident has led the VA inspector general to launch a criminal investigation into systemic failings at the hospital.
Waible was suspended with pay from her job in the cafeteria where she had been transferred after Nutter’s death on Sept. 22, after the Globe inquired about the case.
Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin plans to seek her permanent removal, the Globe reported.
“I hold the VA responsible for all of this. They’re responsible for their employees,” Darton told the Globe. “How many other people did this lady cause issues with?”
Last month, several employees as well as families of veterans claimed that they saw relatively healthy patients deteriorate within months after being admitted to the facility.
Others reported that veterans in the long-term care buildings on campus were neglected. They went for many hours without food, or were left in soiled clothes or bed linens, according to the Globe.
A spokesperson for Shulkin said he is taking the allegations seriously.
“Secretary Shulkin has made clear that VA will hold employees accountable when the facts demonstrate that they have failed to live up to the high standards taxpayers expect from us,” Curtis Cashour said in September.
Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted the story Tuesday saying, “This is a disgrace. Our veterans deserve better. I’ll be demanding answers and accountability from @DeptVetAffairs.”
In Vietnam, Nutter was exposed to Agent Orange, a highly toxic herbicide used to strip foliage from trees and expose the enemy.
Twenty years later his health deteriorated as a result of the exposure.
He developed diabetes, severe respiratory problems and suffered from kidney damage, which forced the amputation of both of his legs.
Nutter entered the hospital a vulnerable patient, who could, at any given moment, enter into cardiac arrest due to an arrhythmia.
He was immobile and didn’t have the ability to call for assistance on his own, so his doctors decided that someone should check on him every hour — at least.
When a nurse checked on him at the beginning of her shift on July 3, 2016, she found him unresponsive in his bed.
She indicated that he had died by sliding her fingers across her throat, according to internal hospital reports, the Globe reported.
“Mr. N9041 is gone,” the nurse said, the Globe reported.
The hospital phoned Carol Nutter to say her husband went into cardiac arrest, and that nurses and doctors couldn’t do anything about it, Carol Nutter told the Globe.
A doctor later explained that “they weren’t doing their job, and if they had done what I told them to, he could have possibly been alive because I told them to check on him once or twice an hour,” Nutter quoted the doctor as saying.
Waible was immediately reassigned following the incident.
At first, she denied any wrongdoing. But she later admitted to being at her computer for the entirety of her shift, after hospital cameras showed her at her computer.
The Nutter family is considering suing the VA.
“My dad might not have lived another five months, who knows? But if we could have had another month with him — this lady took that away,” Nutter’s daughter said.