Elderly man dies in illegal nursing home, 5 arrests. Investigation also for culpable epidemic

Elderly man dies in illegal nursing home, 5 arrests. A "extraordinary cruelty shown towards the victims” , this of the GIP of Reggio Calabria who signed the order of house arrest for the two owners and three employees of the nursing home "The House of the Sun” from Reggio.

In this nursing home, due to the mistreatment and deprivation inflicted on 15 elderly and non-self-sufficient guests, one of them has reportedly seen his health conditions worsen to such an extent until I die despite being hospitalized.

A disconcerting reality that has come to light thanks to Carabinieri of the NAS of Reggio Calabria who carried out the order of the gip with the help of the military Provincial Carabinieri Command of the capital and of the other NAS of the Naples Health Protection Group. The conduct of the defendants was "devoid of any scruples and carried out against individuals completely incapable of defending themselves" writes the investigating judge Valerio Trovato.

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At the request of the prosecutor John Bombardieri, the owners of the illegal nursing home, Giovanna Scarfo' and Cecilia Prestipino, and three employees of the facility, Margherita Battaglia, Emanuele Maria Candido and Florentina Lencautan, ended up under house arrest. Seven other individuals were reported at liberty for illegally practicing the health profession, impersonation and ideological falsehood.

This last accusation concerns a surveyor who falsely certified the presence, in the building, of four separate family homes that respected the minimum structural requirements. The elderly, according to the accusation, They would have been kept without heating or hot water, in rooms without architectural demolition and would have been arbitrarily administered medicines without medical consultation.

The investigation, called “The Lady“, conducted from January to May 2021, started from the complaint of a woman whose husband, suffering from a neurodegenerative disease, had died in hospital after a period of hospitalization in the nursing home. The hypothesis is that the man was the victim of mistreatment and abandonment that would have caused an irreversible worsening of his condition. According to the investigations, the other 15 guests were also mistreated.

They all suffered from serious illnesses and were not self-sufficient. They were given small quantities of food, even expired and poorly preserved, causing deterioration and malnutrition. Furthermore, they were abandoned and locked in rooms where they relieved themselves and on the bed, causing cases of scabies. To make them "manageable"psychotropic drugs would have been administered.

For this reason, the suspects were also charged with the crime of abusive practice of the health profession. Among the charges brought by the prosecutors there is also that of culpable epidemic. It would have emerged that the owners, the cook and another employee would have facilitated the spread of a Covid outbreak, trying in every way to hide the infections from the other employees, the victims' families, the Prefecture and the ASP. The harassment, according to the investigators, also included the impersonation.

According to the wiretaps, in fact, two employees allegedly made an elderly woman, who was planning to leave the nursing home, believe she was talking on the phone with her son, who reassured her about the “good quality” of the care. The investigating judge ordered the preventive seizure of the nursing home and the guests were transferred to their relatives or to other facilities identified by the Carabinieri and the social services of the Municipality.

Furthermore the elderly would be managed by personnel lacking specialist medical qualifications, nursing and social assistance required; what is even more serious is that during the night, since there was only one operator present, in some cases the guests of the facility were forced to sleep in their own feces and urine.

Covid outbreak also hidden

There would also be investigations for the crime of culpable epidemic , as reported by Gazzetta del Sud, since their management would have masked a Covid outbreak among the guests, and hiding the real gravity of the situation from the employees, the families of the guests of the Nursing Home as well as from the Prefecture and the ASL of Reggio Calabria. This situation made it necessary for the NAS to intervene immediately to implement containment measures and avoid more serious consequences for the community.