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Many are questioning a decision by the Virginia nursing regulators to allow a certified nurse’s aide (CNA) convicted of misdemeanor criminal negligence to keep her nursing license. The CNA was given a 180 day jail sentence, all of which was suspended except for three weeks. How did this all happen?
In February 2009, the CNA, Ophelia Tarpeh, was working in an Annandale, Virginia nursing home when she took a 61 year old resident into Washington D.C. for a dental appointment. The resident was paralyzed on the right side of her body and unable to talk.
Tarpeh and the resident were dropped off at the wrong address, so Tarpeh pushed the woman in her wheelchair a length of about three football fields. Unfortunately for the resident, the wheelchair did not have footrests and her shoeless foot dragged on the ground, on asphalt and concrete, the length of the journey. According to witnesses, she was screaming and moaning when they arrived at the dentist’s office.
It turns out that the nursing home resident’s right big toe was cut down to the bone and had to be amputated a few days later at Washington Hospital Center. The U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. then filed charges against Tarpeh which resulted in the conviction of misdemeanor criminal negligence.
The Virginia Board of Nursing last reviewed Tarpeh’s case 18 months ago, when they made the decision to allow her to keep her license. They claim that due to privacy rules they did not know all the details of the case. Now that she has been convicted – and part of her sentencing included one year of supervised probation and barred her from working with vulnerable adults for a year – the board says they will revisit whether or not she should keep her CNA license.
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