Employer must pay US$163,627
Elara Caring – one of the U.S.’s largest home-based care providers – should pay US$163,627 in penalties following the death of one nurse who was visiting a patient.
The incident happened on Oct. 28, 2023,during a home visit in Willimantic, Connecticut.
Joyce Grayson, a licensed practical nurse, had an appointment with a convicted rapist at a halfway house, according to a report from The Associated Press.
She was killed during that visit.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that on the day of the incident, and at times prior, Elara Caring exposed home healthcare employees to workplace violence from patients who exhibited aggressive behavior and were known to pose a risk to others.
Following an investigation, OSHA cited Jordan Health Care Inc. and New England Home Care Inc. – both doing business as Elara Caring – for one willful violation under the agency's general duty clause.
OSHA cited Elara Caring for not developing and implementing adequate measures to protect employees from the ongoing serious hazard of workplace violence. The agency also cited the employer for one other-than-serious violation for not providing work-related injury and illness records to OSHA within four business hours, as required.
“Elara Caring failed its legal duty to protect employees from workplace injury by not having effective measures in place to protect employees against a known hazard and it cost a worker her life,” said Charles D. McGrevy, OSHA area director in Hartford, Connecticut. “For its employees' well-being, Elara must develop, implement and maintain required safeguards such as a comprehensive workplace violence prevention program. Workplace safety is not a privilege; it is every worker's right.”
The employer could have reduced the hazard of workplace violence by, among other ways, “performing root cause analyses on incidents of violence and near misses, providing clinicians with comprehensive background information on patients prior to home visits, providing emergency panic alert buttons to clinicians and developing procedures for the use of safety escorts for visits to patients with high-risk behaviors,” said OSHA.
Elara Caring provides home-based care with over 200 branches in 17 states, including five branches in Connecticut. Its services include skilled home health, hospice care, personal care service, palliative care and behavioral health.
OSHA also said Elara Caring must develop and implement required safeguards including a comprehensive workplace violence prevention program.
Elara Caring will contest the citation ‘vigorously’
Meanwhile, Elara Caring claimed that “the citation that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued to the company is unwarranted” AP noted in the report, posted on City News.
The company said it intends “to contest it vigorously”.
The employer claimed that Connecticut officials determined that Reese was not a danger to the community. Reese was on probation and living in a halfway house in Willimantic after serving more than 14 years in prison for stabbing and sexually assaulting a woman in 2006 in New Haven, the employer noted in the AP report.
“Post-release, state authorities were responsible for monitoring and managing the patient’s activities,” the company said. “The death of Joyce Grayson was a tragedy, and we continue to grieve with the family.”
