A Delaware jury recently convicted a certified nursing assistant of abusing an 89 year old woman at a local nursing home. The specific charges were patient abuse and mistreatment of an impaired adult, stemming from an incident where the assistant allegedly placed a trash bag over the elderly woman’s head as she sat in her wheelchair last February. The victim, who suffered from severe dementia, was not injured.
She was additionally ordered to stay away from any facility providing care for the elderly during the course of her six month probation period. Additionally, following notification of the U.S. Department of Health and Social Services, the agency can further bar the woman from working in a facility that receives federal health care funds for a minimum of five years.
While this incident reportedly took place in Delaware, it could just as easily have happened in Maryland, or any other state. Nursing home abuse is far more common than we would like to believe. Sometimes, as in this case, the victim isn’t physically harmed, but the true ramifications of the abuse may never be known. Additionally, what is further troubling about this case in particular is that there is no guarantee, nor in fact any legal barrier, that will ensure that this woman is prevented from resuming as a certified nursing assistant in another nursing home once her six month probation term comes to an end.