A former U.S. Army veteran is dead after less than three months at a Jacksonville area nursing home.
According to reports from both the facility and his family, staff failed to properly respond to a gruesome gangrene infection that rotted his genitals.
In late 2016, it became clear to York Spratling’s family that the diabetic man could no longer care for himself and would need to enter an assisted care facility.
Spratling was admitted to Consulate Health Care of Jacksonville in December 2016, according to a Florida Department of Children and Families death review report.
So his family was shocked when he had to be admitted to the local emergency room just a couple months later on Feb. 24, 2017 so doctors could remove dead tissue around his genitals. Spratling died two days after the surgery, on February 26th.
Even his physicians were alarmed at his condition. York’s nephew Derwin Spratling said that doctor told him“he had never seen anything like that before, especially in this day and age.”
And the nursing home was aware something was wrong. Staff even told state investigators that they could smell the infection from the door of his room. But they did not document it at the time, nor did they notify a doctor to intervene.
York had refused to take showers, but should have been receiving thorough baths as a result. Instead, it appears the nursing home staff was doing the bare minimum to keep him clean.
Consulate Health Care of Jacksonville, where York was a resident, had been cited by regulators 3 times in the year before his death for being understaffed and not having the requisite number of nurses to shower and bathe patients.
According to the Naples Daily News, the state death review concluded that York Spratling’s death was “due to inadequate supervision and medical neglect.” While Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration regulates the state’s nursing homes, they have taken no action against the facility, despite the findings.
Ironically, the corporation running the facility highlights caring in their marketing materials:
No one will make comments to the press about the incident.
Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) prepared the death report, but apparently just added it to the pile of other such cases they had recorded in recent years. Naples Daily News reports that between 2013 and 2017, there were 43 other such cases in which 54 nursing home residents died due to negligence and/or medical error. 32 of those 43 cases were never punished with so much as a fine or fee. You can view the victims’ stories here.
Consulate Health Care of Jacksonville has faced many accusations of neglect directly from its patients as well, including accounts of them “wallowing around” in the own urine for days.
No doubt this case strikes fear in the hearts of anyone who has had to turn over care of a loved one to a nursing home or other facility. Quality of care can vary wildly, and it’s crushing to think about anyone spending their last years being neglected or abused.
As our population ages, the need for caretakers for the elderly will only increase (especially in places where people move to retire, like Florida), and it’s absolutely imperative that those who work in these environments have the support and resources they need, as well as the willingness and training, to provide high-quality and compassionate end-of-life care.
York Spratling died in a humiliating way that no one should ever have to experience. And all because he wasn’t getting the basic level of attention his family should have been able to expect from a facility whose job it was to care for him.
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