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OTTAWA -- When a nurse told him his elderly mother wasn't being overmedicated, John Cole didn't buy it for a minute.
Cole had confronted Longfields Manor employee Eileen Peters to question her as to why it appeared his 80-year-old mother, Goldie Cole, had been given medication 2 1/2 hours early.
"She said, 'Here they are. They haven't been given yet'," Cole said Peters told him and another nurse, holding a torn packet in her hand with pills in it. "I told her ... nobody's going to buy that story. That's not going to fly.'"
Peters, 59, is charged with one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, 10 counts of mischief related to administering an extra dose of medication, 10 counts of administering a noxious thing and one count of forging medical records related to the timing of the administering of medications. She's pleaded not guilty.
Cole said he and Vince Bouchard, a registered nurse at the manor, discovered on July 10, 2007, a dose of pills was missing from the elderly woman's medication drawer. The discovery happened just after 6:30 p.m. and just after Peters told Cole she believed his mother had suffered a stroke. A subsequent exam by Bouchard ruled out a stroke, Cole testified, and that's when he demanded Bouchard determine whether his mother was being over-medicated.
A dose meant to be administered at 9 p.m. to Goldie Cole was missing from the medication cart, both John Cole and Bouchard testified.
"I told her that she was, in my opinion, a disgrace to her profession," Cole said.
SUSPENDED
Bouchard testified he received orders from the manor's director of care, Monique Patterson, to send Peters home with pay pending an investigation.
Bouchard said further checking of medication records seemed to show nine other residents had been given their medication early that day.
Peters was fired July 26 after allegedly admitting to staff she had given doses of medications to some patients earlier than prescribed.
Goldie Cole, who suffered from mixed dementia, died Aug. 10, 2007.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Gary Barnes, Bouchard said he didn't keep the torn packet.
"Did you even take it out of her hand?" asked Barnes.
"No," said Bouchard. "After she had left, it was discovered in the garbage beside the med cart."
Barnes suggested the evening dosage was meant to be administered at bedtime. Bouchard agreed.
"But bedtime could be 6:30?" asked Barnes.
"It could be," said Bouchard.