Kentucky official allege that the staff of Bluegrass Care and Rehabilitation Center in Lexington used personal cell phones to “inappropriately photograph and make audio recordings” of residents without their knowledge, according to documents from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. The staff attached songs with sexual lyrics to the photographs and circulated them to other staffers, Cabinet spokeswoman Beth Fisher said.  On April 10, 2009,  the home received a Type A citation, the most serious that a nursing home can receive, according to documents that The Kentucky Herald-Leader acquired under the state Open Records Act. The Type A citation said that, as a result of the recordings and photographs, the state considered seven residents to have been abused.

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After four years, Delegate Dave Perry’s bill to make crime of abusing or neglecting an incapacitated adult a more serious offense in West Virginia has finally passed.  There were seven or eight revisions, and even an effort made by fellow delegate John Overington.  Eventually a final version was sent to Governor Joe Manchin stating that any caregiver who neglects such adults or knowingly allows someone else to do so is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $100 to $500.  If abuse is present, then the penalty could be a jail term of 90 days to one year, or both.  If abuse is intentional and malicious, then the crime is elevated to a felony with fine ranges from $100 to $1,000 along with a prison term of two to 10 years.  When the injury is more severe then the fine can reach $5000, and the guilty party can face a prison sentence of between three to 15 years.  The bill even goes on to state that if the injury is malicious and fatal, the sentence is a prison term only, that can reach up to 40 years.   In the end Perry was quoted saying, “I was real pleased this bill passed.  For the last two weeks, there were continued discussions and working and reworking on the bill.”

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But perhaps even more disturbing, however, is a study by Consumer Reports that found that state regulators fined only 50% of nursing homes whose misconduct warranted fines. Make no mistake about it—pressure sores, malnutrition, dehydration, and falls in nursing homes are not the inevitable consequence of old age and ill health.  They are, all too often, the result of understaffing of nursing homes and the resulting inability of the staff on hand to provide the care their residents need and deserve. 

Click to read “Old Age Ain’t For Sissies” published by the Center for a Just Society.