An Oregon nurse who neglected an assisted living home resident who subsequently died has pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment, the Oregon Department of Justice said Friday.
Phyllis Dodds, 75, was working at Pacifica Senior Living in Klamath Falls when allegations surfaced that she had failed to provide nursing care to three residents, the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Friday.
A subsequent investigation by the department’s Medicaid Fraud Unit, the sheriff’s office and Klamath County Adult Protective Services found there had been “serious harm” to the residents as a result of “continual lack of (registered nurse) assessments and a failure to provide basic follow up medical treatment,” the Attorney General’s Office said.
The state charged her with three counts of criminal mistreatment in January — one charge per resident — but eventually dropped two of the charges in exchange for her guilty plea on one of them.
Dodds pleaded guilty to neglecting James Miller by failing to assess his condition, communicate with other staff or properly document what was done for his care in January 2022, according to court records and the Attorney General’s statement.
“The patient was found deceased in his bed the morning after these failures occurred,” the attorney general’s statement said.
Dodds’ nursing license expired in July, according to an Oregon database of registered nurses. She was first licensed in 1991. In addition to three years of supervised probation, Dodds will have to do 150 hours of community service and will be forbidden from working as a paid caregiver, the Attorney General’s Office said.
“Elder abuse in any form is unconscionable and reprehensible,” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in the statement. “When it rises to this level of criminal mistreatment, it is imperative that we hold offenders accountable.”
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