The judge accepted that statement, and Mays was referred to the custody of US Marshals after the hearing, which was broadcast on Zoom. She will remain in jail until sentencing.
While working the night shift, Mays administered deadly doses of insulin, a hormone used to treat diabetes patients, to veterans who had been admitted to the hospital for various problems related to old age. Like all nursing assistants at the medical center, Mays was not authorized to administer medications, including insulin.
None of the patients required care in the intensive care unit or were close to death. Some were not even diabetics, according to court documents.
Tuesday’s hearing comes after a month-long internal investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs that culminated in a referral for a criminal investigation.
In June 2018, a doctor at the VA facility in Clarksburg, West Virginia, first reported concerns about the deaths of patients, including multiple non-diabetic patients, who had suffered unexplained hypoglycemic episodes in a part of the medical center known as Ward 3A, court documents said.
Mays was removed from her position in patient care shortly after those concerns arose.
“Immediately after uncovering these serious allegations, the leadership of the Louis A. Johnson VA VA Medical Center brought them to the attention of the VA Inspector General while establishing safeguards to ensure the safety of each and every one of our patients,” he said. a spokesperson for the facility. he said at the time.
The VA Office of Inspector General released a statement after Tuesday’s hearing calling the events at the medical center “tragic and heartbreaking.”
“This case is particularly shocking because these deaths were at the hands of a nursing assistant who was tasked with providing compassionate and supportive care to veterans. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims,” he said.
Within days of learning of the suspicious deaths at the facility, VA OIG agents identified the defendant as a person of interest. Working with the leaders of the medical facilities, the defendant was immediately removed from patient care. Without critical investigative actions taken so quickly, additional lives could have been lost. ”
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