Few Prosecutions in Elderly Abuse

March 5, 2002 — -- Infected feeding tubes and bed sores the size of dinner plates were just some of the signs of neglect found when reviewing nursing home deaths, according to one coroner's Senate hearing testimony.

During Monday's Senate hearing on nursing home abuse Mark Malcolm, a coroner from Pulaski County Ark., testified that his office reviewed 2,400 nusing home deaths since 1999. A state law requires that all nursing home deaths be reported.

"In the majority of these cases we have found the level of care to be adequate," Malcolm told the committee. "In 56 of these death investigations we have uncovered a much different story. We have seen dinner plate-sized bed sores with infected necronic dying tissue, infected feeding tubes, rapid and unexplained weight loss, dehydration, improperly administered medications and medication errors that have resulted in death."

The hearing followed a government report that says such abuse in nursing homes is not unusual. The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released the study, which indicates that more than 30 percent of the nation's nursing homes have been cited for violations that "caused actual harm to residents or put them in immediate jeopardy."

The report — based on an 18-month investigation of abuse files in three states, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Illinois — also confirmed another fear: Allegations of physical and sexual abuse of nursing home residents are "frequently not reported in a timely manner." As a result, few abusers are ever prosecuted. Those who are prosecuted often get light sentences, the report finds.

Helen Love, a 75-year-old grandmother, was living in a Sacramento, Calif. nursing home when a nurse's aide beat her so severely that her neck was broken.

"He started beating me all along the bed," Love said in a videotaped deposition after the incident. "He choked me, and he went and broke my neck."

There was "no end to the pain," she said.