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Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the Elderly

By Jeralyn, Section Social Justice
Posted on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 01:07:50 PM EST
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As more and more of us find ourselves with parents in need of skilled nursing facilities, articles like this are our biggest nightmare. First, the names of the facilities: the Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home in Rochester, NY and the Northwoods Nursing Home in Cortland, NY.

Hidden cameras recorded nursing-home patients being left in their own waste while staffers watched movies, and 19 workers at two facilities have been arrested, prosecutors said Thursday.....Videotape from that facility, the Jennifer Matthew Nursing Home in Rochester, showed a patient and other residents who hadn't been repositioned to avoid bed sores and were often left for hours to lie in their own urine and waste, Spitzer said. Medications and treatments were not provided as prescribed, he said.

Staff had moved call bells away from patients and stopped doing their rounds so they could socialize, watch movies, sleep or leave the building, Spitzer said. Some employees were also accused of falsely filing records that claimed they provided required care.

It's an ongoing investigation:

Eight former licensed and certified workers at the Rochester home have pleaded guilty to charges involving neglect and false records.

Here is NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's press release

Here is the civil complaint (pdf) Spitzer filed against the owner of the nursing homes detailing the alleged abuse. Apparently, he has not been charged with a crime.

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    Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the Elderly | 12 comments (12 topical)
    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#1)
    by kdog on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 01:31:48 PM EST
    Shameful. I volunteered at a nursing home back in high school and was pretty amazed at the overall poor treatment given to the residents. I especially remember the tortured wails of "help me" or even "kill me" that went ignored. Sad sad places. I'd rather die than live in some of those joints. Part of the problem may be the pitiful wages paid to nursing home aids and attendants. Pay fast-food wages, get fast-food work ethic. I'm amazed that people leave their loved ones in the care of people making 6-8 bucks per hour, and then act surprised when their loved ones are treated like garbage. Just making a point, I in no way condone the behavior of the nursing home staff. How can they look themselves in the mirror at night?

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#2)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 01:52:10 PM EST
    Years ago when my senile, broken-hipped grandmother went into a nursing home she had her big ol' diamond engagment ring on her finger as she had for most of her life (my grandad was a reasonably well-off lawyer). A week later the ring had mysteriously "disappeared." Nothing like the abuse in the linked article, but still...

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 02:03:20 PM EST
    Sarc, Sorry to hear that. Hearing stories like that sometimes makes me feel ashamed to part of the same human race as the kind of people who would do that. Wonder whatt they do for sport on weekends? Go purse snatching?

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 02:21:52 PM EST
    kdog: fast-food wages That's about right. For work that requires one to simultaneously handle another person's excrement and at the same time demonstrate kindness, warmth, and caring to that person. Many of us would not be able to muster that for our own parents, let alone for someone else's for fast-food wages.

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#5)
    by soccerdad on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 02:48:54 PM EST
    BUSH ADMINISTRATION IGNORES OWN FINDINGS ON NURSING HOME CRISIS
    The government study found that 91 percent of all nursing homes do not have enough certified nursing assistants (CNAs) on duty to provide the minimum hours of daily direct care per resident needed. In concluding that quality problems occur below this minimum threshold, the report echoes previous studies and recommendations from geriatric experts, resident advocates, and AFSCME, which represents 40,000 nursing home employees in 22 states.
    snip
    The administration's response is inadequate to addressing the widespread quality problems that this report confirms. Rather than proposals to address the startling fact that nine in ten nursing homes have insufficient staff to provide proper care, the administration reiterates plans for a pilot project to improve the availability to consumers of quality information about nursing homes.
    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#6)
    by jimcee on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 05:08:35 PM EST
    kdog has it right and disabled and the elderly deserve more than this. Alas I doubt that we'll see any improvement soon regardless of the AG's efforts. I guess the best we can hope for is to 'live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.'

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#7)
    by jen on Thu Jan 05, 2006 at 05:53:31 PM EST
    I was rather hoping for live fast die just before nursing home age and leave a totaly used up corpse but, hey to each his own. The baby boomers are on their way. I don't think the problem of nursing home care is going to get any better. Cost of health care isn't going down. Medicaire is going to pay for less and less. How long before euthanasia becomes an option? Not for individuals of course, small chance of that. But a hospital in texas already pulled the plug on one woman against the wishes of her family. So how long before nursing homes don't have to give medical care either?

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Jan 06, 2006 at 04:46:14 AM EST
    Just want to let all know that nursing homes aren't the only option for the elderly and disabled. Each state has a in home care program either through Department of Aging or through the state itself. In Illinois it is through Department of Rehabilitation Services, for those 59 1/2 or under, and the local Senior Centers offer it for the elderly. We advocate on a daily basis with our legislators as the states pay WAY more to nursing homes than they would have to if they let EVERYONE choose to stay home. Nursing home lobbyists are just to big for us to get these changes on our own. Please call your reps today and tell them everyone should be allowed to stay at home and not have to go to a nursing home. Call your local Centers for Independent Living to ask what you can do to get these laws passed. Here's the one I work for. www.rampcil.org check us out!

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 06:46:24 AM EST
    You know... I just have to make a comment. I have been at Northwoods. I have met the staff and found them wonderful. I also know that in some other long term care places abuse does go on. People are not perfect. There are some people out there that should not be around other people. You see cases of abuse all over in many different situations. I personaly do not think that not putting lotion on a residents back once during the entire week does not mean abuse, yet that is what they are charging some of the Northwoods people. I also agree that the staff is very much underpaid, and undermaned. As to not answering crys for help me? You have to relise that some residents there have lost mental capasity. They are sometimes diluded, incoherent and confused. I can think of two occations off the top of my head while I was in Nursing school of residents yelling "Help Me!" over and over again for no reason. I also can think of a dozen or more examples of residents hitting call bells for fun or they just don't know any better. As for leaving them for hours without changing them? How many mothers changed their infants that where in dipers every 30 min? When a person is incontinent (can't go to the bathroom on their own) and has to wear a breif, it is next to imposible to keep them dry. They do the best they can when 1 CNA (Nursing assistant) has to take care of 10 people that can not care for themselfs. My sugestion is that the goverment pay more attention and think about giving more $ twords the elderly of our country than wasting it on helping other countrys. 99% of Healthcare workers do their jobs every day. They wash, clean, dress, and feed people. They give them vital medication and set up activitys for them to do. Lets not lable the 99% with what the other 1% is doing.

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#10)
    by Johnny on Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 11:47:36 AM EST
    The warehousing of the elderly is a unique invention of modern civilization. We call them dying rooms. Out of sight, out of mind kind of thing. With that being said, I realize that there is no room in this culture for people who are no longer employable, so to make the best of a bad situation, extreme regulation of these warehouses is absolutely necassary. However, wrong-wingers will flat out refuse to fund these things (falls too close to the dreaded social security). The elderly are still humans, and as such, still 100% responsible for their lives. Any hardship they encounter post-work life is a result of their lack of work ethics and quite possible from ever having voted democrat a some point. Seriously though, the way the elderly are treated in this country is a damn shame, and a nation that prides itself on family values is also the nation that prides itself on warehouses for them.

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 12:07:40 PM EST
    Johnny: Out of sight, out of mind kind of thing....With that being said, I realize that there is no room in this culture for people who are no longer employable You've nailed it here, Johnny. When the economy is the only reality, and the buck rules the world, anyone who can't or won't be a cog in the machinery is barely tolerable. And other cultures, Asian, Native, old European, etc. who take care of their elders at home are suspect, perhaps because large families in the neighborhood that do so make the ones who shuffle off their parents to a warehouse or a dying room feel guilty?

    Re: Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Jan 26, 2006 at 06:40:30 AM EST
    Anyone else concerned with the loss of privacy that the workers, residents and families of this facility suffered as a result of the NY investigation?

    Nursing Home Workers Charged With Abuse of the Elderly | 12 comments (12 topical)