A former nurse at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been charged with multiple counts of child abuse after a premature infant in her care was found with broken bones, bruising and injuries to her tongue, according to court records reported by WOOD-TV.
Kieran Ansley, 43, was fired from the hospital, located in Kent County, after the allegations surfaced. She has been released on bond and is expected to appear in court on Nov. 10.
The infant, a girl, was born four months premature and had spent months in the hospital’s intensive care unit. She was making progress and was expected to be discharged in April.
“She was born at 23 weeks: 1 pound, 1 ounce,” the child’s grandfather, Robert Steavens, told WOOD-TV. “And she made it through her due date, ready to go home. And then two days before she was ready to go home, this happened.”
According to court records, the girl’s mother visited her on April 2. As the mother approached the room, Ansley “jogged” to intercept her before she reached the child, telling her the infant had “slept through the night.”
The mother reportedly noticed the infant’s tongue was “blue and black” and saw several bruises on the child that had not been there the night before. Court records show Ansley told investigators she had “seen this in the past and it was not a big deal.”
Hospital staff interviewed during the investigation described Ansley as “flustered,” “a little bit frustrated,” “scatterbrained,” “heated” and “overwhelmed” on the night in question, according to court records.
A staff log from that night showed 32 separate instances of someone entering the infant’s room. Ansley accounted for 27 of those visits, the records show.
Ansley’s defense attorney, Damian Nunzio, told WOOD-TV that his client has cooperated with investigators, has spent
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