NHC covers up molestation by CNA
Michael Owens of the TriCities.com website reported a story about another sexual assault of a nursing home resident by an employee nurse. The article discusses how a co-worker, Patricia Davenport, reported the employee molesting a resident on two different occasions but was told she was mistaken by NHC (National HealthCare Corp.). She quit after the complaints were ignored.
Davenport then told the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia that she witnesses the same aide molesting two different nursing home patients. Davenport said the first time she stumbled upon the abuse of patients was in August 2007. The woman’s shirt and bra had been shoved high on her chest. A nurse’s aide was standing behind the wheelchair, and he was reaching around to fondle the patient’s breasts. Later that same month, Davenport said, she caught the same aide fondling a blind patient. That aide, James W. Wright was indicted on four counts of aggravated sexual battery. Each count stems from the investigation into the treatment of a different patient from 2000 to 2007.
National HealthCare Corp., runs the Bristol nursing home as well 75 others in Tennessee and other eastern states. Virginia Department of Health Professions records show that Wright still holds an active license to work as a nurse’s aide. The abuse was not a secret among nursing home staff. “When I talked to the rest of [the nurses], they said this has been going on for years,” Davenport said. Davenport said she complained to her supervisor. “You look at those people every day in the face knowing they’re getting abuse and you can’t do anything because nobody’s got your back,” Davenport said. “I don’t want to go back to nursing.”
A second article discusses additional abuse by Wright at the Brookdale Senior Living-Grand Court Bristol nursing home, where the aide accepted a job after passing the criminal background and job reference checks. Although nursing aides said they witnessed and reported sexual abuse by Wright to NHC officials, NHC did not pass along any of that information to Grand Court. In all, eight people from both nursing homes have told investigators they were groped, fondled and sexually assaulted by Wright between July 2003 and May 2008, according to documents filed by the Virginia Board of Nursing. Nursing board documents show that seven NHC patients complained of being sexually assaulted while under Wright’s care.
Despite those complaints at NHC, the aide arrived at his new job in September 2007 with flawless references, said Holly Botsford, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based Brookdale Senior Living, which runs 548 homes across the nation, including Grand Court Bristol. “None of [the checks] indicated he had any previous employment or character issues,” Botsford said. A Grand Court patient was sexually assaulted the following May, according to Virginia Board of Nursing documents.
A pair of former NHC nurses said the nursing home’s management routinely dismissed patient and nurse allegations against Wright. It was in 2003 that former NHC nurse Diane Lewis reported a patient’s complaint of being touched inappropriately. A staff director did ask the patient about the complaint, but the investigation ended there. Twice in August 2007, then-nursing aide Patricia Davenport complained that Wright mistreated two patients.
