By: Russell Keener  —  June 22, 2011
 

As this video from the AARP illus­trates, the num­ber of ex-convicts work­ing with our most vul­ner­a­ble elderly pop­u­la­tion is stag­ger­ing. The video expands on a US Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices study that obtained the names of over 35,000 nurs­ing home indus­try employ­ees and cross-referenced them with the records of the Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion to find related crim­i­nal his­to­ries. The find­ings were not reas­sur­ing. Accord­ing to Daniel Levin­son, inspec­tor gen­eral of HHS:

Our analy­sis of F.B.I. crim­i­nal his­tory records revealed that 92 per­cent of nurs­ing facil­i­ties employed at least one indi­vid­ual with at least one crim­i­nal con­vic­tion. Nearly half of nurs­ing facil­i­ties employed five or more indi­vid­u­als with at least one con­vic­tion. For exam­ple, a nurs­ing facil­ity with a total of 164 employ­ees had 34 employ­ees with at least one con­vic­tion each.

 

The AARP pro­files Bar­bara “Bee” Becker, a cit­i­zen advo­cate whose activism springs from the mur­der of her mother-in-law in a nurs­ing home by a male res­i­dent in 1999. Bee is now a one-woman clear­ing­house of media sto­ries from around the coun­try on abuse within nurs­ing homes.

 

Nurs­ing homes are not required to con­duct ade­quate back­ground checks of prospec­tive employ­ees. Ten states require a check of F.B.I. and state records. Thirty-three states require a check of state records. The other states have no back­ground check require­ments. Thus, in 40 states, an appli­cant to work in a nurs­ing home may have a felony crim­i­nal record in another state that would not be detected in the nurs­ing home’s back­ground check. This explains the huge num­ber of con­victed crim­i­nals work­ing among our elderly. It also gives one sig­nif­i­cant rea­son why elder abuse is a prob­lem in our nurs­ing homes.

The New York Times reports:

Sen­a­tor Herb Kohl, Demo­c­rat of Wis­con­sin, who has inves­ti­gated nurs­ing homes as chair­man of the Aging Com­mit­tee, said: “The cur­rent sys­tem of back­ground­checks is hap­haz­ard, incon­sis­tent and full of gap­ing holes in many states. Preda­tors can eas­ily evade detec­tion dur­ing the hir­ing process, secur­ing jobs that allow them to assault, abuse and steal from defense­less elders.”
…
Dr. [Char­lene A.] Har­ring­ton [a pro­fes­sor at the School of Nurs­ing of the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cisco] said that many nurs­ing homes did back­ground checks in a per­func­tory way, and that some did not check peo­ple who applied for house­keep­ing, food ser­vice or laun­dry jobs.

“Even some of the bet­ter nurs­ing homes have prob­lems with theft, ram­pant theft of res­i­dents’ cloth­ing and per­sonal pos­ses­sions, includ­ing jew­elry,” Dr. Har­ring­ton said. “Peo­ple con­victed of crimes are often left alone with nurs­ing home res­i­dents because the super­vi­sion of care is, in many homes, very inadequate.”

Atlanta Nurs­ing Home Wrong­ful Death Law Firm

For more than 20 years, the Acci­dent and Injury Lawyers at the Keener Law Firm have focused their prac­tice on rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of vic­tims killed due to nurs­ing home neg­li­gence in per­sonal care homes, assisted livi­ing facil­i­ties, and skilled care facil­i­ties (nurs­ing homes). We rep­re­sent per­sonal injury and wrong­ful death vic­tims and their fam­i­lies in the Atlanta metro area and through­out the state of Geor­gia. Call toll free at (800) 900‑2400 or locally at (770) 955‑3000 to speak with an attor­ney in a one-on-one, free consultation.