If I become Senile or get Alzheimers, please remind me to not live in a Nursing Home!
'Is there anybody that's willing to help this lady and not let her die?'

It’s
nothing short of a 9-1-1 nightmare, as an emergency dispatcher begs a
nurse to perform CPR on a woman who wasn’t breathing and eventually
died.
What’s shocking is the nurse not only refused to perform the CPR, she
also refused to hand the cell phone to anyone else to help the dying
woman.
Authorities have just released the chilling audiotape of the 9-1-1
call, where the 87-year-old woman at the Glenwood Gardens Retirement
Facility in Bakersfield, Calif., was passed out on the dining-room
floor.
When the dispatcher asks, “Is she breathing?” the caller replies, “‘Is she breathing?’ Barely.”
When asked to perform CPR, the nurse can be heard saying, “Yeah, we can’t do CPR at this facility.”
The dispatcher then says, “OK, then hand the phone to the passerby.
If you can’t do it, I need, hand it to the passerby, I’ll have her do
it. Or if you’ve got any citizens there, I’ll have them do it.”
“No, no, it’s not,” the nurse says.
Complete audio of the 9-1-1 call can be heard here:
The dispatcher said, “Anybody there can do CPR. Give them the phone,
please. … This woman’s not breathing enough. She’s going to die if we
don’t get this started.”
With time a crucial factor, the female dispatcher tries desperately
to convince the nurse to take action, lamenting, “I don’t understand why
you’re not willing to help this patient. Is there anybody that works
there that’s willing to do it?”
“We can’t do that,” the nurse says. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“Are we just going to let this lady die?” the dispatcher says.
“Well, that’s why we’re calling 9-1-1,” the nurse replies.
“Is there a gardener … any staff? Anybody that doesn’t work for you,
anywhere?” the dispatcher asks.”Can we flag someone down in the street
and get them to help this lady? As a human being, I don’t, you know, is
there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?”
The nurse replies, “Um, not at this time.”
It was too late to save the woman by the time paramedics arrived.
“Our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for
assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such
personnel arrives,” Jeffrey Toomer, executive director of Glenwood
Gardens, said in a statement to NBC’s “Today” show. “That is the
protocol we followed.”
Maribeth Bersani, of the Assisted Living Federation of America, told
CBS News: “There’s no requirement that the people in the building be
trained to perform CPR, so a company could state in a policy they don’t
want anyone to initiate CPR.”
Jack Ford, a legal analyst for CBS, called the scenario “morally
reprehensible,” and said the question involves, “a legal responsibility
and legal liability.”
Ford said: “What’s the agreement that this woman and her family had
with this home, and … it was a residential facility, not a nursing home,
assisted living. Very different if it was that. So if in their
agreement they say specifically, ‘We do not provide emergency medical
care. We will get somebody for you,’ then that could shield them from
some problems. Then other question is, what are your reasonable
expectations. When they sold this as a sales pitch, did they say, ‘Look,
we have wonderful workout facilities, wonderful dining facilities and
we have medical people on site here.’ Well, you know then, despite what
might be in the agreement there, you have a reasonable expectation.”
As for the woman who refused to help, Ford said she was apparently told something as an employee.
“She may well be in a tough position,” he noted . “If she was told by
her employers, ‘You cannot do this, if you do, you’re in violation, and
you’ll lose your job.’ Now you have a woman being told, do I try to
save someone’s life and by doing so, do I risk my own job for doing it.
That’s why you have to look to the employers. The reality is, some
states, you are starting to pass Good Samaritan laws that say you can’t
be sued if you try to stop and help somebody, the reason is people sue
you sometimes if you try to stop and help somebody. You have to look at
the culture of society here, the litigious nature of society. It just –
it’s a terrible tragedy.”