An Iowa memory care community is facing a $10,000 fine after wrongly declaring a resident dead and transferring her to a funeral home, where she was discovered alive and gasping for air inside a body bag.
The 66-year-old woman moved into Glen Oaks Alzheimer’s Special Care Center, a Frontier Management senior living community in Urbandale, IA, in December 2021 with diagnoses including end stage early-onset dementia, anxiety and depression, according to a Feb. 1 citation from the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals’ Health Facilities Division. She entered hospice care at Glen Oaks on Dec. 28, 2022, with “senile degeneration of the brain” and was given lorazepam and morphine for comfort.
A day after experiencing “seizure activity,” the resident was declared dead on Jan. 3 by a nurse, who notified the family and a hospice nurse that a pulse could not be detected and that the woman did not appear to be breathing. Another nurse and the funeral director also reported no signs of life before the woman was taken to a funeral home in a body bag.
Approximately 45 minutes after being transported to the funeral home, a worker called 911 and hospice after unzipping the body bag and finding the woman “gasping for air.” Emergency responders transferred the woman, who was breathing but unresponsive, to the emergency department for further evaluation. She then was returned to Glen Oaks for continued hospice care. She died Jan. 5 with her family by her side.
The state found that Glen Oaks “failed to provide adequate direction to ensure appropriate care and services were provided,” and “failed to ensure residents received dignified treatment and care at end of life.”
Glen Oaks has 30 days to respond to the citation to request a formal hearing or pay the fine.
Glen Oaks and Frontier Management had not responded to requests for comment from McKnight’s Senior Living as of the production deadline.
