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CheezHater Asked November 2013

How do you expose an abusive private nurse?

We have recently had to fire the "paid companion/retired nurse" we hired to help with our mom, who has early dementia. The nurse inserted herself into mom's finances, started turning her against her primary caregiver, long time friends and of course, us, her family. On the advice of our local care agency, we have reported her to the Ontario College of Nurses, but she is still advertising her services and I would not want another family to go through what we did. Is there an online forum where I can expose her so that if potential clients Google her name as part of a background check, it will come up? She gave us references but both references were dementia patients themselves, not family cargeivers.

Stressed52 Dec 2013
Watch out what you say.... you may wind up being sued for liable or slander or numerous other things. I wanted to do this to a contractor that took my mother for a ride and yet I was told to watch out as I would wind up being sued by him. Instead i went to the Los Angeles Attornys Office and had them sue him for me. I still wanted to warn others on the internet, but dropped the matter due to legal issues.

CarolLynn Nov 2013
With anyone you employ, especially someone you bring into your home to care for an impaired person who may not be able to report to you anything negative going on, it is "caveat emptor" - BUYER BEWARE!

Here's the problem, contained in your last sentence:

"She gave us references but both references were dementia patients themselves not family cargeivers."

If you only had references from dementia patients so that they could not be checked out, you shouldn't have hired this woman in the first place.

Now you have to be very cautious. You may think that you're trying to reach out and prevent other people from coming to harm from this woman's behavior based on what she's done and your family. However, you're talking about the kinds of things that she's done through a dementia patient, which you may have a hard time validating. Making accusations that you can't concretely prove could lead to lawsuits against you for libel, slander, definition of character and loss of income. Even if you could prove your case in court and prevail, the cost to defend yourself could be HUGE. If you were to lose, the cost could be ENORMOUS!

Report her to the licensing authorities, which is your right and responsibility. Beyond that, others who hire her will have to do their own due diligence.

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Eddie Nov 2013
Follow up with OCN and see what they've done to hold her accountable. In the meantime, there's nothing like telling your story to the local newspaper. Nowadays what you say isn't as important as what you can prove. To protect yourself against libel, stick to the facts and provide hard copies. Once the story is released, the grapevine should do the rest.

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