A home health care company failed to protect a visiting nurse who was killed during an appointment with a convicted rapist at a Connecticut halfway house and should be fined about $161,000, federal workplace safety officials said Wednesday.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration released the results of its investigation into Elara Caring and the Oct. 28 death of Joyce Grayson, a 63-year-old mother of six and nurse for 36 years. The Dallas, Texas-based company, which provides home care for more than 60,000 patients in 17 states, said it disputes OSHA’s findings and plans to contest them.
OSHA determined the company “exposed home healthcare employees to workplace violence from patients who exhibited aggressive behavior and were known to pose a risk to others,” the agency said in a statement.
“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,” Charles McGrevy, an OSHA area director in Hartford, Connecticut, said in the statement.
And considering that they work across 17 states, paying someone to be a security escort in any risky situation is probably more expensive. Employees don’t get murdered that often, so might as well just set some money aside and pay the fine when it happens.