"MINNEAPOLIS - Two home health care workers are criminally charged in connection with the death of a vulnerable adult in Mid-March.
Shawn James Gigrich, age 48, was charged with a gross misdemeanor count of criminal neglect and one count of failing to report the maltreatment of a vulnerable adult, which is a misdemeanor.
Miski Mohamed-Ali, age 25, was charged with one misdemeanor charge of criminal neglect.
The charges follow the death of an elderly man who died March 20, 2011 from circumstances Minneapolis Police attribute to substandard care.
Investigators say Gigrich was responsible for caring for the victim in his home on West River Parkway from May 2010 to March 11, 2011, when they maintain he visited the victim for the last time.
On March 17, Best Care Home Health, Inc., the company that employed Gigrich, received a call from the victim requesting an emergency visit because he was experiencing pain and believed his urinary catheter was plugged.
Miski Mohamed-Ali, the company's on-call nurse, went to the victim's residence at 12:30 a.m. on March 18 and stayed there for two hours, during which time she changed his catheter.
A neighbor called 911 one day later reporting that the victim was not alert. Police say paramedics arrived at approximately 9:30 a.m. and observed the victim to be in poor medical heath, dirty and uncared for. Additionally, they described the residence being extremely cluttered, the smell of urine was present and there were mouse feces on the floor.
The elderly victim was transported to an area hospital where staff had to cut off his clothes and cleaned both human and rodent waste from the victim. He was admitted to the hospital in critical condition and died March 20. The man's cause of death was listed as sepsis from a urinary tract infection with poor nutrition and pancreatic cancer as contributing factors.
Investigators determined that both home health care nurses were aware of the victim's poor condition and his residence, and did nothing about it.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman maintains that this case shows the need for felony level charging when vulnerable adults are neglected."
I knew the man who died; I spent almost 6 months cleaning his house after he died. The problems of clutter & mice indeed built up over the years that he was sick; he didn't want to live that way. Trust me when I say that it was an overwhelming problem, much more than any caregiver could be expected to do with their limited hours. I know because I'm a caregiver, a caregiver for the widow, and I did much more than I was paid to do and STILL could not solve the problems of the house after working on it for months!!! Shawn is innocent of neglect. The deceased appreciated his caregivers and WOULD NOT want them to face charges. Shawn & other caregivers took care of his physical needs & the smell, clutter, & mice of the house were not their fault; even if they had tried to solve these problems they couldn't have made a dent in that house packed with decades' worth of stuff. The landlord never came to fix the house's problems like bad plumbing & windows that don't open. They rented the house, & the smell, clutter & mice are a result of their lifestyle choices, (hoarding) and the landlord's neglect, NOT the caregivers' neglect. The deceased would not want this attention or legal trouble.
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