Police: Coralville care center worker overmedicated patient

An employee at a Coralville care center was arrested Saturday and accused of giving a patient almost six times the amount of medication she was prescribed to sedate her.

Sandra Price-Elder, 69, is charged with administering harmful substances, a felony; wanton neglect of health care facility resident, an aggravated misdemeanor; and dependent adult abuse, a serious misdemeanor.

  Buy Photo

According to a criminal complaint, the administration at the Brown Deer Place senior living community in Coralville received a report that Price-Elder was seen with an oral medication syringe that had nearly six times the amount of medicine prescribed to the patient being treated. Further investigation showed the medicine was being ordered more frequently than needed.

Price-Elder admitted in a police interview to regularly giving the patient a higher dose, starting in April, to “sedate her and make the defendant’s job easier,” the complaint states.

Price-Elder was being held in the Johnson County Jail but was released on a $2,500 bond Monday morning after her first appearance in court on the charges.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com