One of Iowa’s largest nursing home chains is facing a lawsuit filed by a former nurse alleging a form of whistleblower retaliation.
It is the third such lawsuit that Care Initiatives of West Des Moines has faced in the past year. The company operates 44 care facilities in Iowa.
In the most recent case, Tina Weber of Clemens alleges that from May 2021 through October 2024, she worked as a registered nurse at an unspecified Care Initiatives facility in Marshall County.
The lawsuit alleges that on Oct. 5, 2024, Weber witnessed an incident involving a resident in a wheelchair with schizophrenia and a human resources worker. According to the lawsuit, the two were engaged in an argument and when the schizophrenic resident attempted to leave in his wheelchair, the human resources worker grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, causing the resident to fall out of the wheelchair to the ground.
Weber reported the incident to the assistant director of nursing and recorded the incident in the resident’s chart. The next day, Weber alleges, the home’s director of nursing texted Weber, writing, “Could you strike out original note and when putting in about the wheelchair say she was assisting with the wheelchair and he put himself on the ground as she tried to de-escalate him and explain that he was not allow to smoke and the policy?”
Weber allegedly responded, “So not the truth?”
On Oct. 11, 2024, an administrator allegedly asked Weber to change her account of the incident in the resident’...
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