Health care workers fired for alleged patient neglect, abuse and policy violations

A Sioux City hospital nurse, fired for numerous alleged instances of substandard care in the emergency room, is not entitled to unemployment benefits, a judge has ruled.

State records show that on Dec. 18, 2024, registered nurse Corriene McKeown was scheduled to work from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the emergency room at Sioux City’s MercyOne Siouxland Medical Center.

During her shift, the hospital later alleged, McKeown provided substandard nursing care to eight separate patients. For seven of the eight patients, McKeown allegedly failed to complete the required assessments. For one patient, McKeown allegedly failed to complete the required handoff in charting to ensure continuity of care once the patient was admitted to the hospital.

For another patient, who was admitted to the ER at 12:35 p.m. after complaining of increased confusion, McKeown allegedly failed to complete a level of consciousness assessment until 7 p.m.

For a third patient, who was admitted to the ER at 5:52 p.m., McKeown allegedly failed to complete time-sensitive triage medical charting until 7:10 p.m. and the absence of that charting contributed to a delay in patient care.

When hospital officials later met with McKeown to discuss the alleged deficiencies, McKeown asserted the ER had been busy and short-staffed, and that she could provide good patient care or good charting, but not both. According to the hospital, McKeown had previously been counseled about charting in April 2024 and June 2024.

On Jan. 28, 2025, McKeown was fired. After a hearing on her application for unemployment benefits, Administrative Law Judge James Timberland concluded recently the “weight of the evidence establishes multiple instances of carelessness” by McKeown on Dec. 18, 2024, and he ruled McKeown was ineligible for benefits.

“These were part of a pattern of carelessness,” Timberland stated in his ruling. That “careless performance,” he added, included “multiple instances of failing to properly and timely chart patient care, directly impacted patient care, directly impacted the employer’s ability to provide appropriate patient care, and indicated a willful disregard of the employer’s reasonable nursing care standards.”

Other unemployment cases

Other Iowa caregivers whose unemployment cases were recently decided include:

— Debra Rawlins, who worked as a certified nurse aide for On With Life from November 2023 until January 2025, when she was fired after being accused of repeatedly abandoning her duties and neglecting brain-injured residents in her care. The final incident leading to her dismissal occurred on Jan. 8, 2025, when she allegedly disappeared repeatedly from her assigned area and then failed to respond to calls made through a mobile communication system. She was accused of loitering in a single-occupant restroom for 45 to 60 minutes until being discovered there by a nurse on duty.

According to her employer, Rawlins had twice been counseled previously for neglecting her assigned residents for 30 to 60 minutes. On New Year’s Eve 2024, the company alleged, management suspected Rawlins was under the influence of alcohol while at work but elected not to invoke its alcohol-testing protocol. Administrative Law Judge James Timberland ruled recently that Rawlins was ineligible for unemployment benefits, concluding she had “neglected the brain-injured residents in her care so that she could loiter while on the clock.”

— Bernice Thompson, who worked as a receptionist for Universal Health Services Midwest, which operates Clive Behavioral Health. She was fired after allegedly failing to comply with policies tied to the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, which requires hospitals to stabilize patients before discharge.

The hospital policy barred patients from leaving prematurely without signing records acknowledging they were leaving against medical advice. Thompson had reportedly objected to that policy, arguing it violated patients’ human rights, unlawfully held them hostage and amounted to some form of Medicaid fraud. She was denied unemployment benefits, with a judge finding her conduct “disregarded the wellbeing of the patients and violated the employer’s EMTALA policy.”

— Damariss Magne, who worked as a certified nurse aide for Christian Retirement Homes from August 2024 through January 2025, when she was fired. The care facility alleged that on the evening of Jan. 12, 2025, Magne discovered that one resident of the home had fallen out of bed, with their face and arms on the floor, and their legs still on the bed. With the help of another CNA, she placed the resident back in bed but didn’t inform a nurse of the fall until an hour had passed. The company fired Magne, alleging that video showed during the hour after the fall Magne was in close proximity to nurses on multiple occasions and could have informed them of the incident. She was denied unemployment benefits.

— Jonnie Weeks-Almaguer, who worked as a certified nurse aide for the nursing home Corning Specialty Care from April 2024 until she was fired in February 2025 for allegedly verbally abusing a resident. On Feb. 19, 2025, another CNA at the home, Destiny Luft, had reported overhearing Weeks-Almaguer say to a resident something to the effect of, “You need to clean yourself up because you did it to yourself.” The resident allegedly corroborated Luft’s claim. Weeks-Almaguer was denied unemployment benefits.

— Kelley Bender, who worked for the Madrid Home for the Aging as the director of nursing from September 2023 until she was fired in January 2025. Several weeks before she was fired, Bender had talked to the home’s compliance officer about concerns she had with the leadership of the home’s administrator, Rick Colby, and the home’s failure to report an incident of some kind. Days later, she met with the home’s CEO to discuss the same concerns.

Shortly thereafter, the home’s management launched an investigation of Bender, who had no incurred no prior warnings or disciplinary actions while working at the home. Management interviewed Bender’s colleagues and subordinates and gathered complaints from multiple workers. Without speaking to Bender, management allegedly opted to fire her. Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Johnson recently ruled Bender is entitled to unemployment benefits, finding that the home’s stated reason for its investigation lacked credibility, and that “it seems more likely that her discharge was triggered by her report to the CEO than by her actual conduct at work.”