KS nursing home failed to prevent ‘physical and sexual abuse’ of residents, report says

A Clearwater nursing home failed to keep a resident from physically and sexually assaulting three other residents, according to a Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services report.

Advena Living of Clearwater did not respond to an email and two voicemail messages about the allegations in the Sept. 17 report.

“The facility’s failure to implement effective interventions to prevent physical and sexual abuse placed (three residents) in ... Immediate Jeopardy,” the report says, adding the three residents “were cognitively impaired and unable to effectively communicate impact of the physical and sexual abuse experienced.”

Libby Hastings, a spokesperson for Kansas Advocates for Better Care, said many Kansas nursing homes struggle with proper staffing, which increases concerns for all residents, but the sexual abuse claims are particularly concerning.

“Sexual abuse in a nursing home is one of the most serious forms of neglect and a devastating breach of trust,” she said. “Facilities are responsible for ensuring that residents are safe, protected, and treated with dignity at all times.”

Here is what the report says:

The resident was admitted to the facility on March 12 with a “history of inappropriate behavior.”

May 14: Two days after his arrival, he “grabbed and hit (a) cognitively impaired resident.”

June 1: He bit another resident’s finger, causing it to bleed.

June 21: He and another resident slapped each other.

June 28: He touched a female resident on her clothed gential area.

July 3: He tried to grab a staff member’s private area three times that day.

Aug. 5: He touched a female resident’s breast while she was asleep in the TV room and tried “to reach under her shirt” when staff separated them. The victim here had the same identification as the person in the May 14, June 1 and June 21 incidents.

Aug. 24: He went into a female resident’s room and staff found him with “his hand in her brief while the female resident lay in bed.”

A staff member also said he knew about the resident’s sexual behaviors toward female staff, and he had been “asked numerous times by female staff to bathe (him) because they felt uncomfortable.”

The report says staff took measures in some of the incidents but the organization ultimately failed to implement a strategy to keep the incidents from reoccurring. After the Aug. 5 incident, he was put on one-to-one supervision for 10 days but staff “failed to administer (his) physician-ordered medication to address his sexual behaviors.”

The resident has been accepted at a new facility and will leave by Nov. 1 or sooner, according to a corrective plan submitted by the company. The items, which have a completion date of Oct. 13, said the facility also had training in light of the reported abuse and a policy will be created to continue monitoring residents after they leave one-to-one supervision. It also says the facility has a new administrator and director of nursing.

Additionally, to ensure that resident gets his medicine, the “Director of Nursing will add to her calendar as a reminder to ensure that medication is on hand by due date every 2 weeks.”

Advena, a company that operates seven nursing homes in Kansas, including one in Wichita, also had to evacuate the 30 residents from its Clay Center location, called Advena Living of Clay Center, in August after mold was found in 20 resident rooms and other rooms, the Salina Post reported. A Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services official told the news outlet that all residents “have been successfully relocated.”

Hastings said the location in Clay Center has closed permanently since the mold was found.