Nurse’s aide from Delco admits neglecting elderly patient at nursing center
NORRISTOWN » A Delaware County woman faces some jail time and probation for neglecting an elderly patient at the Norristown nursing facility where she worked as an aide.
Zanker Yeliae “Zee” Yormie, who listed addresses along the 3900 block of Dennison Avenue in Drexel Hill and along the 1600 block of Garrett Road in Upper Darby, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 10 days to 12 months in the county jail after she pleaded guilty to multiple misdemeanor charges of neglect of care for a dependent person in connection with incidents that occurred in September 2016 at the Regina Nursing Center on East Fornance Street in Norristown.
Judge Todd D. Eisenberg also sentenced Yormie to complete five years’ probation. Yormie was ordered to stay away from the Regina Nursing Center and to have no contact with the 81-yearold male victim. The judge also ordered Yormie to complete an anger-management counseling program.
Eisenberg ordered Yormie to report to the jail on Dec. 1 to begin serving the sentence.
With the neglect charge, prosecutors alleged Yormie “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly caused bodily injury by failing to provide treatment, care, goods or services necessary to preserve the health, safety or welfare of a care-dependent person” for whom she was responsible to provide care.
An investigation began on Sept. 13, 2016, when Norristown police received a report of elder abuse at the nursing facility, according to a criminal complaint. An administrator at the facility told detectives that nursing personnel had reported to him that Zanker, a certified nursing assistant, assaulted an elderly patient at the facility, according to the arrest affidavit.
During the investigation, detectives interviewed several nursing staff employees who claimed Zanker punched or slapped the 81-year-old man in the face while she was caring for the man and “while attempting to keep him in his bed,” according to the criminal complaint filed by Norristown Detective David Mazza.
One nursing assistant told detectives Yormie “became angry and rough” with the victim and aggressively grabbed him from a wheelchair and threw him onto his bed,” Mazza wrote.
“Investigators learned that (the victim) was unable to be interviewed due to his medical condition,” Mazza wrote in the arrest affidavit.
But the victim’s roommate told detectives he heard the victim screaming “as he was being slapped at bedtime one recent evening,” according to the criminal complaint.
Yormie, according to court documents, was certified in July 2012 by the state Department of Health as a nurse aide and was enrolled in the Division of Nursing Care Facilities Nurse Aide Registry with an expiration date of July 2018, court documents indicate.