Twenty-one patients died under suspicious circumstances at Clarksburg, W.Va.-based Louis A. Johnson Medical Center during the employment of Reta Mays, according to a federal report. Ms. Mays, a former nursing assistant, was sentenced for murder and assault charges in the deaths of eight veterans May 11.
Findings from the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General report leave the facility open to additional wrongful-death lawsuits, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported May 19.
The health records of the 21 patients who died during Ms. Mays' employment "reflected one or more of the following criteria — lack of documentation, abnormal clinical decline, hypoglycemic events, or death pending transfer to lower levels of care or within 24 hours of planned discharge," according to the report.
The report doesn't specify whether those 21 patients are separate from 10 previously identified patients who died after "severe, unexplained hypoglycemic events" during Ms. Mays' employment.
Based on evidence presented in the report, which details events that took place from July 2017 to June 2018, Ms. Mays could be connected to "three or four more" patient deaths, Tony O'Dell, an attorney representing the victims' families, told the Gazette-Mail, adding that he'll work to file a civil lawsuit against the facility on behalf of as many families as possible until the August deadline. The deadline to file marks two years since information into suspicious patient deaths at the facility became public.
On May 11, Ms. Mays, 46, received seven consecutive life sentences, one for each murder, and an additional 240 months for an eight victim. She pleaded guilty to seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assult with intent to commit murder in July. The former nursing assistant worked the night shift at the same time veterans in her care died of hypoglycemia. She admitted to administering insulin to several patients with the intent to cause their deaths, though nursing assistants at the facility aren't authorized to administer medication.
"Deficient medication management and security practices on ward 3A [Ms. Mays' floor] gave Ms. Mays situational opportunities to commit multiple murders and for those acts to go undetected over a period of months," the report said.
The OIG also laid out a number of recommendations for facility administrators to implement following the incidents involving Ms. Mays, including ensuring clinical documentation reviews are completed in a timely manner.
In a statement previously emailed to Becker's, Wesley Walls, a spokesperson for Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center, said the facility "has started implementing each of the OIG's recommendations, which are expected to be completed by March 31, 2022."