Elderly abuse is a despicable crime under any circumstances and takes many forms including physical, financial, emotional and neglectful acts. Incidents are on the rise according to most law enforcement and senior service professionals. All agree that reported cases are only a fraction of what actually happens. And, contrary to the nursing home abuse crowd, only a tiny number of these happen in congregate living facilities such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities. It is the fear of all of us caught in the sandwich generation.

I have always believed responsible seniors, relatives and senior care managers take every reasonable effort to assure their staff caregivers are honest, compassionate and if not loving, at least provide safe care. I know I did when I was a nursing home administrator. Yet, a story in the Napa Valley (California) Register, entitled Stopping the Abuse, makes me wonder if my long held assumptions are off base. Columnist Betty Rhodes writes:

By and large, most of our county caregivers are angels on this earth, but we now know that this is not always the case.

For instance, in a 2007 Napa Register article by David Ryan, Napa County District Attorney Gary Lieberstein stated that he had heard stories from the state parole system that parole officers are telling convicts that home caregiving is a promising field for gainful employment. Parolees are able to get the work without a lot of background checking.

Granted, these folks have served their time and should be given another chance, but please not in the homes of our elderly.

For some time now, The Napa County Commission on Aging’s Caregiver Fingerprinting Ad Hoc Committee has been working on a plan to ensure the safety and security of all elders who rely on others to care for them in their own home. (You can read the rest of her column here.)

In home sitter services can be both life saver and nightmare. I have had both experiences. It’s wonderful Napa County California after some serious incidents of elder abuse is studying a proposal to fingerprint all hired in home care givers. It must be pointed out the parolees already had their prints on file and it is not clear whether these incidents were committed by these same folks. However, it is one of those things that causes sensible people to go Hmmmmm!

A nationwide initiative of this sort is long over due in my opinion. My suggestion is a computerized registry of convicted elder abuse offenders similar to the one for sexual predators receiving so much attention today. These elderly abusers are predators of an equal stripe and very dangerous ones and apparently numerous ones at that. Until that happens, my suggestion is to use a non-medical agency like Home Instead or Visiting Angels who background, bond, train and supervise their employees.

Tags: Fraud & Abuse, Senior Safety

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am and is filed under Crime Prevention, Safety, Senior Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.