Emeritus at Crossing Pointe

NEGLECTED TO DEATH | Part 2: Case closed in woman’s death, but records tell another story

 

Caretakers failed to give Magdalena Marrone life-saving medication. But no one was ever held accountable in her death.

msallah@MiamiHerald.com

When Magdalena Marrone’s relatives gathered for her funeral in Central Florida, they were told the matriarch of the family succumbed to ravages of old age at her upscale Orlando group home.

What they didn’t know: Caregivers failed to give her life-saving heart medication for four days — and then gave her the wrong drugs.

Not until days later did family members learn the details of the 82-year-old grandmother’s final days.

“No one called the family until the investigation,” said grandson Kevin Marrone, 35. “We all assumed it was natural.”

Though state regulators found sweeping breakdowns and neglect leading to sanctions against Emeritus at Crossing Pointe, caretakers were never held responsible under Florida’s elder-abuse law.

Citing a lack of evidence, the state attorney general’s office dropped the case last year, even though state agents found caretakers failed to read Marrone’s charts and then gave her the wrong medication.

The attorney general’s office said the state was unable to pinpoint a specific person at fault. Records tell a different story: The Department of Children & Families found that three people committed medical neglect contributing to her death.

The attorney general closed the case, concluding problems had “been addressed” by regulators. Not so. The home went on to break the law a dozen more times, including a critical lapse that left a man without psychiatric drugs for 10 days — and a falsified report concealing the mistake.

Three decades after Marrone moved to Florida to spend her retirement years, her grandson said his family is still disappointed no one was held accountable in her death.

“My family never felt justice,” Kevin Marrone said in an interview last year.

Karen Lucas, a spokeswoman for Emeritus Senior Living, said she could not discuss details of the case because of a confidential settlement agreement between the ALF and Marrone’s family.

The problems began in August 2009 when the elderly grandmother returned to the facility from an extended hospital stay.

Marrone had been losing weight and suffering from complications of diabetes and other disorders, but after nearly two months at a nursing home, she appeared to be improving, DCF reports show. By the time she returned to the ALF where her husband, Anthony, was also residing, the fateful errors had begun.

At first, the home lost track of her chart, including orders from a doctor that she get crucial doses of medication, including Rythmol and Digoxin, every day to keep her heart beating regularly and reduce the risk of heart attack.

Four days later, a nurse realized Marrone had not gotten any drugs since she arrived, but then ordered the wrong prescriptions. Just hours after the first dosage was given, a medical technician found Marrone slumped in a wheelchair, foaming at the mouth, and her skin turning blue.

Minutes after she was rushed to the hospital, she was pronounced dead at 5:26 p.m., August 26, 2009. The cause of death: cardio-pulmonary arrest, records show.

Three weeks later, the case took another turn: A doctor working with the ALF declared Marrone died of ovarian cancer, hypertension, diabetes and dementia — without mentioning the critical mistakes by the home in the days before she died, records show.

AHCA inspectors concluded the errors at the home caused Marrone “to go without life-saving cardiac medications for 4 days.”

Read more Neglected to Death stories from the Miami Herald

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