Nursing Assistant

Isabel Woodward, a retired nursing assistant and world traveler, died in her sleep Friday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The former longtime Catonsville resident was 90. Isabel Cabezali was born, raised and educated in Blanca, Argentina. She was married in 1937 to Cyril Woodward, a mechanical engineer. In 1954, the couple fled the Argentinian dictatorship of Juan Peron and settled in Catonsville. Mrs. Woodward settled into the life of a homemaker and, during the 1960s, began volunteering in the nursery unit at St. Agnes Hospital.

Nursing homes need funding to provide quality health careYour April 10 editorial "Better care for nursing homes" reported negatively on nursing home care, but did not adequately address the overall issue.While a recent study by the General Accounting Office did find that Maryland failed to investigate complaints promptly, Marylanders should not conclude that our nursing home regulations are lax.In fact, Maryland's nursing home laws have grown more strict in recent years, as have the federal laws.

A former nursing assistant has pleaded guilty to one count of abuse of a vulnerable adult for slapping a resident at Millennium Health and Rehabilitation Center at Liberty Heights in Northwest Baltimore, the Maryland Attorney General's office announced yesterday.Polla Darlene Bagwell, 41, of the 3400 block of Reisterstown Road slapped a 66-year-old man when he pulled away from her while she was assisting him, according to Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.Bagwell pleaded guilty Thursday and city District Judge Norman E. Johnson Jr. ordered her to serve 12 months of unsupervised probation, perform 50 hours of community service and take no part in hands-on care at the nursing home for one year.

The nursing assistant's credentials looked solid when she applied at the Elizabeth Cooney Personnel Agency in Baltimore last fall. But the agency's investigation revealed that the entire resume was a sham, and the woman was never hired.She had no experience in the New York City group home that she listed. In fact, the home didn't exist. Nor did a second reference in New Jersey. The certificate attesting to her credentials was fake, too.Although Maryland monitors dozens of health care professions, nursing assistants are not among them, making it harder to weed out incompetents and putting Maryland's elderly at greater risk of fraud and abuse.

Joseph W. Smith, 86, banker, bird watcherJoseph W. Smith, a retired banker and World War II veteran, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at his Ginger Cove Retirement Community home in Annapolis. He was 86.Mr. Smith, who moved to Annapolis in 1996 from Philadelphia, was a banker with First Pennsylvania Bank for 42 years before retiring in 1976.The longtime Ardmore, Pa., resident was born and raised in Philadelphia, where he graduated from Germantown High School. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania evening school and the American Institute of Banking.

A former nursing assistant at a Chestertown nursing home has been indicted on charges of physically and sexually abusing a vulnerable adult at the home, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. announced yesterday.Gene Patrick Carpenter, 29, a former certified nursing assistant at the Magnolia Hall Nursing Center, is charged with two counts of intentional abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult and sexually abusing an 84-year-old resident on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7, Curran said.He said Carpenter was indicted by a Kent County grand jury on Tuesday after two witnesses said they saw him fondle the woman.

The Westminster Nursing and Convalescent Center didn't know the nursing assistant it hired in November 1993 had a criminal record and a history of mental illness that had put him in state psychiatric hospitals 12 times the previous seven years.Michael Paul Griffith -- who was convicted last week in Carroll Circuit Court of killing a 94-year-old patient a month after he was hired -- never disclosed his questionable history on his employment application.And officials at the nursing home didn't check.

Michael Paul Griffith, who told police he suffocated a 94-year-old nursing home patient because he couldn't stand to see her suffer any longer, was convicted yesterday of second-degree murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.Griffith, a former nursing assistant at the Westminster Nursing and Convalescent Center, had been charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 29, 1993, death of Carrie Marie Ecker, a 15-year patient there.As part of a plea deal, Griffith entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder yesterday.

A Westminster nursing home employee was charged yesterday with killing a 94-year-old resident whose death in December had been believed due to natural causes, state police said.Michael Paul Griffith, 32, was arrested yesterday and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Carrie Marie Ecker, who lived at the Westminster Nursing and Convalescent Center. At the time of the death, Mr. Griffith was a nursing assistant at the convalescent home.Ms. Ecker died at the center Dec. 29. In February, Trooper First Class John Reininger opened an investigation into her death, although police would not say what raised suspicion.

In all likelihood, Michael Paul Griffith's desire to talk to police four months ago about "helping" a nursing home patient die helped them build a murder case -- against him.After he asked a Carroll District judge for a postponement of his bail review yesterday, Mr. Griffith, 32, remained in the county jail on charges of first- and second-degree murder in the Dec. 29 death of a 95-year-old nursing home patient.Mr. Griffith -- a Westminster man who used to be a nursing assistant at the Westminster Nursing and Convalescent Center -- was arrested Sunday morning and has been held without bail since then.

Nancy H. Lynch, a retired nursing assistant and homemaker, died Monday of ovarian cancer at her Eldersburg home. She was 74. Nancy Lee Hughes, the daughter of an estate farmer and homemaker, was born in Washington and moved in 1940 to Sunny Hill Farm near Glyndon. She was a 1953 graduate of Towson Catholic High School and earned an associate's degree from what was then Catonsville Community College in the early 1970s. Mrs. Lynch had worked as a nursing assistant for a dentist and later two physicians before retiring in the 1980s.

A federal jury found two Baltimore men guilty Friday in the contract killing of witness Carl Stanley Lackl, bringing to justice the last of eight people - drug dealers, gang members and one nursing assistant - charged in the conspiracy, which began nearly two years ago with a text message sent from a Baltimore jail. The jury will next decide whether to sentence Patrick Albert Byers Jr., who ordered the hit while incarcerated on murder charges, to death. His co-defendant, Frank Keith Goodman, acted as Byers' agent on the outside and faces life in prison; he will be sentenced July 17. Both men are 23. Lackl's mother and longtime girlfriend sobbed as the guilty verdict was read.

A little nervously, Marquita Nelson stood at the lectern in front of two dozen other women at the Caroline Center in East Baltimore and delivered what amounted to a testimonial. "This has helped me a lot, it really has," said Nelson, 23, who plans to graduate today from a training program at the center that will certify her as a nursing assistant. Nelson was not referring to the 15-week nursing course she has just completed, but rather to unrelated classes at the center about how to save money by conserving energy at home.

Mary Jane Shields-Komber, a retired nursing companion who was an accomplished social pianist, died of a respiratory illness Tuesday at Stella Maris Hospice. The Towson resident was 79. Born Mary Jane Cleary in Baltimore, she attended St. Ann's Parochial School and was a 1946 Seton High School graduate and appeared in the school's theatrical productions. She became a Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone service representative and later sold the World Book Encyclopedia. She was an Immaculate Heart of Mary School teaching assistant, and after study at a Red Cross nursing program, she received her nursing-assistant certification and was a private-duty companion nursing assistant for 15 years.

Isabel Woodward, a retired nursing assistant and world traveler, died in her sleep Friday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The former longtime Catonsville resident was 90. Isabel Cabezali was born, raised and educated in Blanca, Argentina. She was married in 1937 to Cyril Woodward, a mechanical engineer. In 1954, the couple fled the Argentinian dictatorship of Juan Peron and settled in Catonsville. Mrs. Woodward settled into the life of a homemaker and, during the 1960s, began volunteering in the nursery unit at St. Agnes Hospital.

Joan F. C. Houston, a World War II nursing assistant and former executive secretary who built her own home, died Saturday of renal failure at the House of Jubilee, a Fallston nursing home. She was 85. The former Joan Frances Carol Morgan was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales. During World War II, she was a nursing assistant, stretcher bearer and enemy aircraft spotter. During the war, she met and fell in love with Bradford N. Houston, a U.S. merchant marine steamship captain whose vessel's stern was blown off during the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach.

A nursing assistant and a paramedic who have examined the arms of death row inmate Vernon L. Evans Jr. testified yesterday in federal court that they spotted numerous veins that could be used to deliver the fatal doses of drugs used in the state's lethal injection procedures. The witnesses - both members of Maryland's execution team - said they stood by their assessments despite the contradictory findings of Dr. Thomas Scalea, a surgeon and the physician in chief at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

`Happy Baby' classes at Learning Center The Learning Center at Carroll Hospital Center is offering a class to help parents and other caregivers learn methods for keeping babies content. "The Happiest Baby on the Block" class is based on the approach pioneered by child development specialist and pediatrician Harvey Karp, and presented in his book and DVD, The Happiest Baby on the Block. Parents learn proven ways to quickly calm a crying baby, such as the "Calming Reflex," the "5 S's" and the "Cuddle Cur."

Sitting calmly with two fellow certified nursing assistant students in a balloon-festooned room at Howard Community College, Virginia Muldrew betrayed none of the turmoil she was feeling -- until she got up to speak. "I was in the middle of a breakup. I lost my home. I didn't have a job," the homeless 40-year-old mother of two tearfully told about 70 people attending Howard County Department of Social Services' first celebration for clients who have completed a mandatory two-week Employment Success Training Course.

Zelma Marie Harvey, a retired nursing assistant and caregiver, died of heart failure April 30 at St. Agnes Hospital. She was 85 and lived in Catonsville. Born Zelma Marie Holloway in Sladesville, N.C., she attended public school there and moved to East Baltimore in the late 1930s. She began working as a health care attendant when she was 17 and spent much of her life providing care for children and the elderly. In 1944, she married Ned Harvey, who died in 1979. Mrs. Harvey was most proud of her service with the Maryland Meals on Wheels program, said her daughter Alicia B. Harvey-Smith of Catonsville.