Oklahoma Nursing Home Fails to Protect Resident From Sexual Assault
Grace Living Center in Edmond, Oklahoma placed its residents in immediate jeopardy recently when staff failed to appropriately respond to a sexual assault in the facillity. As a result, the State fined the facility more than $3,000 and the facility is currently ineligible for Medicare or Medicaid benefits.
A resident at Grace Living Center sexually abused a female resident, who had only resided at the facility for 14 hours. She suffers from a medical condition and could not defend herself during the attack.
Staff at the facility noticed a male resident touching the new resident inappropriately. The incident was reported to a charge nurse, who instructed the staff to get the female resident up and dressed. Approximately one hour later, the woman was crying and moaning. Staff assessed her for injuries and noticed bleeding. The facility failed to contact the police or the woman's family for more than an hour and a half. Moreover, the victim was not taken for treatment for over two and a half hours after the incident.
Police said "the facility did a poor job of protecting the evidence...took all of the victim's bed linens and clothing...the perpetrator's clothing and placed the clothing in the soiled laundry, before the police were notified". The police also advised the health department that the administrator felt that the situation was blown out of proportion.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time the perpetrator, a male resident suffering from dementia, has been observed behaving inappropriately. He was a known "wanderer" who "liked to go into women's rooms who couldn't call for help". Two days before the incident, he was "observed touching the leg of another resident who was dependent on staff for assistance". The same day he touched a resident's leg, he was seen pulling up the shirt of another staff-dependent resident.
The Oklahoma District Attorney's Office is considering criminal charges against the former resident.
