A breach of duty involving ending or leaving care without consent or ensuring continuation?

• A. Abandonment
• B. Neglect
• C. Desertion
• D. Resignation

Answer: (A)

Abandonment is the act of ending or withdrawing care from a patient without arranging for someone to continue it. It violates the caregiver’s duty to provide ongoing, safe care, and it places the resident at risk because there’s no plan for continued supervision or treatment. The scenario describes terminating care without consent and without ensuring continuation, which matches abandonment precisely.

Neglect involves failing to meet a patient’s needs or provide adequate care, but it doesn’t necessarily involve a deliberate ending of the caregiver-patient relationship. Desertion is a closely related idea of leaving a patient, but in this context the standard term used is abandonment. Resignation is simply quitting a job and doesn’t capture the caregiver’s duty to the patient.