Virginia Nursing Home Sexual Battery Charged

8-26-09
BRISTOL, Va. – The first time Patricia Davenport complained about a nursing aide’s mistreatment of a patient, she was told she saw it wrong.The second time Davenport complained – and no action was taken – she quit the nursing job she’d had for only six months at the National HealthCare nursing home on North Street.....

James W. Wright, 35, was indicted Tuesday on four counts of aggravated sexual battery. Each count stems from the investigation into the treatment of a different patient from 2000 to 2007, including the lady Davenport said she saw in the wheelchair and another patient who is blind, authorities said.

Davenport said the first time she stumbled upon the abuse of patients was in August 2007. It was the sound of a rocking wheelchair that grabbed her attention, she said, as she strode down a hallway. She peeked into a patient’s room and saw a woman shaking in her wheelchair. The woman’s shirt and bra had been shoved high on her chest. A nurse’s aide was standing behind the wheelchair, and he was reaching around to fondle the patient’s breasts.“She looked like she was just getting ready to break down,” Davenport said. “She just looked at you like ... she was so confused and hurt.”

Davenport said she quit soon after that incident.“You look at those people every day in the face knowing they’re getting abuse and you can’t do anything because nobody’s got your back,” Davenport said. “I don’t want to go back to nursing.”

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