South Carolina Nursing Home Blog : South Carolina Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Poliakoff & Associates Law Firm : Elderly Care, Senior Care

KnoxNews.com had an article about a lawsuit filed against Ashbury Place for failing to protect Katheryn Hill from a known sexual predator living at the nursing home.  The Hill family wants to know why she shared a floor at the nursing home with a convicted sex offender, James Charles Strickland

"They let him roam the floor with everybody else," said David Boyd, the family's lawyer. "He had free rein to assault her."

Hill was living at Asbury Place when Strickland came to her room March 13, 2009, and tried to rape her. Hill called for help, and a worker pulled Strickland off her.  No information about how he was able to get in the room unnoticed by the staff.  Strickland had been previously convicted of rape and incest. 

Federal guidelines require that any nursing homes accepting such patients be able to protect the other patients.  Asbury Place staff knew about Strickland's convictions but did nothing to separate him from other residents or keep an eye on him.  He died about four months later without being charged by police.  Hill's daughter pulled her from the home after the assault and has cared for her at home since then.

 "They moved him immediately after this incident and notified police," Boyd said. "But our beef with Asbury is that they didn't have anything in place to tell the families about him being there or any plan to watch him."

State law bars sex offenders from living near schools or being around children. No such bans exist for nursing homes, said Andrea Turner, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Health.

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The Jacksonsun ran an artilce about Sedric "Yakk" Joy who admitted to police that he went into a nursing home patient's room and committed a sexual act, according to an affidavit.  Joy is charged with sexual battery in the incident and is being held on $50,000 bond.  The affidavit says police received a complaint on Dec. 26 of a possible rape at the Pine Meadows Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center.  A spokesperson for the nursing home refused to say why Joy was at the nursing home or how he got into the victim's room.

The victim's roommate told a nurse that a man came into the room and attempted to undress the victim.  The man then exposed himself and climbed on top of the victim. The victim, who was in a geriatric chair, is not able to carry on a conversation or defend herself due to her medical condition. Investigators went to Joy's home a short time after the initial call and questioned Joy.  Joy admitted to the incident to investigators.

Prestige Healthcare owns Pine Meadows.  Pine Meadows is a skilled nursing facility licensed for 134 patients.

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 Louisville Courier-Journal had an article about the recent jury verdict against ResCare Inc. A jury in Albuquerque, N.M., returned a damage award of about $54 million against ResCare Inc. over the rape of a disabled male resident in one of the company’s group homes.  After a three-week trial, the jury unanimously found ResCare negligent, Bettinger said. The company was ordered to pay nearly $5 million in actual damages and more than $49 million in punitive damages.

Carl Bettinger, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the incident occurred a few weeks after ResCare fired nine of the 12 employees of its group home in Roswell, N.M., because they failed or refused drug testing. Bettinger said in an interview that ResCare’s now-defunct New Mexico subsidiary “scrambled” to hire new staff for the home. One of the new hires had been fired from his last job, where he had been found kissing a male resident, Bettinger said. ResCare didn’t call that employer to check on the new worker before hiring him.

The man worked one night at the ResCare facility. That was the night the resident was abused, Bettinger said.  No eyewitnesses came forward.  Physical evidence was lost when the resident was showered the next day.

The award surpasses the $36.6 million profit earned in all of last year by ResCare, one of the nation’s largest providers of residential care to persons with disabilities.

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 13Wham.com had a story about a nursing home employee charged with rape of a mentally disabled resident.   The man was a nurse in charge of caring for residents at a local nursing home. Kipper Allen Stevens, an LPN (licensed practical nurse) at Shore Winds Nursing Home, was arrested for rape and endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person after a six-month investigation by Rochester, N.Y police.

In his statement to police, Stevens gave a different account of what happened; he claims he had a "relationship" with the woman.   “Our relationship started out as friends, but…I know that I should not have been involved romantically with a patient, but it just happened. We were two consenting adults having a relationship, and at no time was it forcible." Stevens goes on to say, “I want people to know although this was improper, it was nothing malicious.”

Prosecutors said another worker witnessed the alleged abuse and reported it to management. Shore Winds president, Robert Hurlbut, Jr., said they began an internal investigation immediately, and suspended two workers, including Stevens.

The story does not mention how long the "relationship" lasted or if her family was aware of it.

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The family of a 69-year-old woman has filed a lawsuit against a Chicago nursing home for failing to protect her from being sexually assaulted by a 21-year-old mentally ill resident.  Maplewood Care's administrator tried to cover up a rape by calling it consensual sex.  It is an example of how mixing frail senior citizens and younger mentally ill residents in nursing homes can lead to violence if facilities do not monitor potentially dangerous residents.

"The only possible reason that you would be in this situation is a profit motive," attorney for the family said. "You want more residents in your facility, but you're unwilling to pay for the necessary elements to protect all the residents."

Christopher Shelton had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with aggression when he was admitted to the nursing home in November.  Shelton, a convicted felon and a former resident of the Elgin facility, was readmitted to the nursing home without a proper review of his criminal history. Had the facility checked, it would have discovered Shelton had an outstanding arrest warrant on felony battery charges. The state report showed he had told the nursing home staff in December that he was sexually frustrated, but the facility failed to monitor him.

Shelton was missing at bed check, but no search was made or alarm sounded to alert residents and staff that a young, aggressive, sexually frustrated, convicted felon was prowling the halls of the nursing home. Later, a night shift nurse heard an elderly woman moaning and crying.  The nurse found Shelton in her bathroom, where he was calling 911 to report that someone was attacking the woman.  Paramedics and an emergency room doctor later examined the woman and noted signs of sexual trauma.  Doyle who was the Administrator at the facility downplayed the encounter as consensual sex in a report to the state and encouraged employees to lie about it to cover it up.

The state and federal governments only fined the nursing home $44,400 for violations related to the incident.

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The St. Paul Star-Tribune had a tragic story about abuse in local nursing homes, and new measures used to protect residents.   After state investigations at two homes last year, three former aides were charged with 10 or 11 counts of physically and sexually abusing residents with dementia.  Ashton Larson and Brianna Broitzman were accused of abusing seven residents at Good Samaritan Albert Lea.  Maria J. Bjerke was charged with abusing six residents at Luther Haven in Montevideo.  

The episode started when the doctor of a resident in Cerenity's 30-bed dementia unit reported Oct. 13 that she had trichomonas, a sexually transmitted disease.   Cerenity's investigation swung into high gear 16 days later, when a different resident with dementia said she had been attacked.

The home notified regulators and began to investigate.  The medical director and nurses from other homes started to examine every woman on the unit, and by nightfall six were sent to a hospital for sexual assault exams.  Doctors there found that three showed "lacerations and physical findings consistent with recent sexual assault."

The home reported the allegations to the state and to police, and launched a two-prong plan to investigate the case and protect residents from a potential sexual predator.

The Cerenity Bethesda nursing home stationed guards at its doors to register and escort visitors, sent eight male employees home with pay and called in national experts to examine all male and female residents in the 117-bed facility.   It also retrained staff on how to spot sexual abuse and for more than a month used a "buddy system'' to ensure that no resident was alone with an employee or visitor. The Department of Health cited Cerenity Bethesda twice during its investigation for inadequate measures. The "immediate jeopardy'' citations faulted the home for failing to adequately protect residents and failing to take immediate corrective action.

There has been growing public awareness in the past year that Minnesota nursing home residents with dementia are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.

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Tulsa World had an article discussing another nursing home employee accused of sexually assaulting a nursing home resident.  Something needs to be done about the hiring practices of these nursing homes.  There are hundreds of incidents like this every year.  It is disgusting and the nursing home industry ignores and covers up the problem.  I think videotaping should be the norm in nursing homes despite the alleged privacy issues that may arise.

The article states that a nursing home worker was charged with caretaker abuse amid accusations that he sexually assaulted a resident he was bathing. Edward Lee Marshall faces a felony charge of sexual abuse by a caretaker after allegedly fondling a physically and mentally disabled man at the Southtown Nursing Home. He was arrested after an honest nurse reported the allegation, police said. Marshall worked as a restorative aide and provided various types of "therapy" to residents.  Marshall was giving a blind patient a bath when the abuse is alleged to have occurred, police said.

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The CantonRep.com had an article about an unsupervised visitor to a ManorCare nursing home who was accused of fondling a physically disabled female patient at Cincinnati facility. Alvin Meyer was charged with gross sexual imposition by force. The allegation was made by the patient at the Heartland of Mount Airy facility in Springfield Township, which has about 105 patients.   Nursing home spokeswoman Julie Beckert said the alleged fondling happened in the patient’s room and that the patient was able to immediately tell staff what happened.

ManorCare Health Services of Toledo owns the facility. ManorCare has policies and procedures in place that should have protected the resident, including training and in-service of staff.

Meyer’s address is listed on the same street as the home, about a mile-and-a-half away.

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STLtoday.com had a tragic story about the rape and abuse of a resident at the hands of a nursing home employee.  Why aren't these people checked and supervised?  How can this happen to the most vulnerable citizens?  How many others were raped and abused by this villian?  Was a criminal background check done?

The accused employee was a former janitor at a nursing home in Normandy. He has been accused of raping an elderly resident. Santonio McCoy of St. Louis is charged with forcible rape. He is accused of attacking a woman at the home.

McCoy turned himself into Normandy police on Wednesday last week. He is being held in lieu of a $200,000 cash bond. McCoy had worked at the nursing home for about a year, Madigan said. The attack was interrupted when three workers at the home walked by.
 

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The Philadelphia Daily News had a news report of a amn who was allowed to take a resident out of a nursing home and rape her.  Yeadon police have charged a Northeast Philadelphia man with raping a dying 70-year-old nursing-home patient with Alzheimer's disease and a brain tumor. Doctors say she may have had less than six months to live.

Timothy Patrick White, 46, waived his preliminary hearing yesterday and was held for trial on 15 counts of rape and related charges. White took the victim from the Manor Care Nursing Home to a Southwest Philadelphia bar for rum-and-cokes, then to Cobbs Creek Park, where they drank beer until 5:30 a.m. on July 22.  When he drove the woman back to the nursing home, staffers noticed that White was "not wearing a shirt and his pants were unbuttoned," according to the affidavit for his arrest. They also found bruises on the victim's mouth, neck and arms, and discovered that she was not wearing any underwear. White told workers he was "a friend of hers," then drove away, police said. It was unclear how White was able to leave the home with the woman.

How did he have access to the resident?  How did the nursing home not notice that she was missing for all those hours?  This is disgraceful on the part of the nursing home.

A DNA sample taken from White matched semen recovered from the victim's anal cavity, according to police.

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