Victims taunted, groped in Albert Lea nursing home abuse case

To make "work fun" four young nursing home aides abused 15 demented residents by hitting their breasts and genitals, sticking fingers in their mouths or noses to keep them from screaming, and taunting them, according to a state investigation made public Friday.

The four unidentified women, who were working at Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn., were fired in May when the abuse was discovered. The Freeborn County Attorney is considering criminal charges.

The details of the case were revealed after family members had been recently informed of the abuse of their loved ones.

Their treatment of the residents, which apparently went on for months, was "pretty horrific. This shocked everybody," said Mark Dickerson, spokesman for the Good Samaritan Society, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., which operates 40 nursing homes in Minnesota. "We've asked ourselves how this could go on and nobody find out. We just don't know."

The four women -- one adult and three juveniles -- were fired after a fifth aide, who was fired for swearing in front of residents, blew the whistle on them.

Three additional aides who witnessed or were told about the abuse were also fired for failing to report it. "We can't remember anything quite like this, it's that rare -- both in the number of perpetrators and the range of pretty bad actions," said Kris Lohrke, who supervised the Minnesota Department of Health investigation.

The four committed verbal, sexual and emotional abuse of residents in their care, said a report by the Office of Health Facility Complaints at the Health Department.

'Just a joke'

"To them it's just a joke, funny, something to amuse you at work," an aide who witnessed some of the abuse told investigators. "They don't think of it as being bad, they just think of it as a joke."

Another aide told investigators that the four talked about what they were doing. It was "making work fun or to get a good laugh," she said. She said they would close the curtain by a resident's bed so they could not be seen if someone walked in. She said the four were confident the residents wouldn't complain because they don't "have their minds."

According to the report, one aide spat in a resident's mouth, sexually "humped" some residents, and sat with bare buttocks on the lap of a woman resident who was in a wheelchair.

One aide who witnessed the abuse said that three of the aides would grope one man's genitals to "get a rouse out of him, as in sexual teasing." Another said that all four aides talked of hitting residents "boobs or crotch, or rub it around" to make the residents angry.

All four aides would hold down some residents who resisted care and put a hand over the residents' mouths to muffle their cries or screams.

At times they would say things to upset residents. When one resident asked "Where am I?" one aide allegedly told her she was in jail.

The nursing home was not at fault and followed correct procedures once the allegations came to light, the Health Department found.

No physical evidence

Freeborn County Attorney Craig Nelson said Friday that he will decide by late next month whether to bring criminal charges.

He said the aides might be prosecuted for acts against five or six of the 15 residents. He said "the standard of proof is higher for criminal charges than for the Health Department's findings. There is no real physical evidence, so it will depend on what people saw and might testify to."

Families of the 15 abused residents were told in May that something had happened, but at investigators' request were not told details until this week, when the Health Department report was released, Dickerson said. Families of other residents also were notified of the investigation, he said.

Lohrke of the Health Department said the abuse apparently began early this year and lasted for at least several months. The aides were hired between August 2006 and December 2007.

Three of the residents have since died. The others could not be interviewed by investigators because all have Alzheimer's disease or other diseases that affect memory and cognition.

The home was told of the allegations on May 2 and suspended one aide that day and the others two days later. It notified Albert Lea police and the state of the allegations. It brought in a nursing team to evaluate the 15 who allegedly were abused and interview all other residents.

The home has held two training sessions for staff about their duty to report suspected abuse, Dickerson said.

"The staff has been just torn up about this. But they're now taking great pains to ensure it never happens again," Dickerson said.

Warren Wolfe • 612-673-7253