An 84 year-old man died after nursing home staff failed to bathe him and his genitals rotted off. York Spratling contracted gangrene after staff at Consulate Health Care in Jacksonville, Florida, failed to help him with his personal hygiene, even though they could smell the stench of his rotting flesh as soon as they entered his room.
The Florida state review ruled that workers there failed to seek treatment for Spratling or report his condition, but no action was taken against the facility, according to News-Press.
Spratling’s family said he suffered from diabetes but remained active in his later years, although they never expected his health to decline so quickly. ‘Everything was about to fall off, it was so rotten,’ said Spratling’s brother, Obie.
‘It really freaked us out.’ The neglectful conditions did not come as a complete surprise to the family. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration cited the nursing home three times in the year before Spratling’s death for not staffing enough nurses to give patients proper personal hygienic care.
Nurses at the facility told the family that Spratling refused showers. In February 2017, less than three months after he arrived at the nursing home, Spratling was rushed to the emergency room on a stretcher because he needed surgery to remove the dead tissue on his genitals. ‘(The doctor) said he had never seen anything like that before, especially in this day and age,’ said Derwin Spratling, York’s nephew.
York Spratling died shortly after the surgery. Family members expressed their disappointment and disbelief at the nursing home’s conditions following York’s death. ‘His private area, nobody washed that,’ said Lula Price-Brown, Spratling’s sister. ‘Who was taking care of this man.’ Consulate Health Care did not respond to requests seeking comment.