Nursing assistant guilty of rape of a dementia patient

I read yesterday that a former certified nursing assistant was sentenced to up to eight years in prison for raping a 69-year-old woman with dementia. Jerald Sullivan was also ordered to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty Wednesday in Berkshire Superior Court. Prosecutors say Sullivan sexually assaulted the elder woman in January 2011 while working at the Hillcrest Commons nursing facility in Pittsfield. The judge called the elder crime "reprehensible." I don't know the facts of this case but from the article ot looks like the Judge 'got it right'. I have seen Judges at criminal sentencing of abusive and assaultive nurse aides take a much more lenient approach leaving the distressed families and victims with no recourse other than the civil justice system a la the O.J. Simpson victims.

A nurse aid at a Kindred nursing facility in Massachusetts escaped any jail time even after admitting to assaulting 4 helpless dementia residents. Two subsequent civil nursing home abuse actions provided some measure of justice for the victims families but only after a protracted and hard fought battle to bring Kindred to Justice.

Federal and State Laws specifically prohibit any type of assault upon elders in nursing homes, but it takes a judge or jury to bring these laws to life.

Nursing assistant pleads guilty to raping a patient with dementia at Pittsfield nursing home | The Republic

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_19677553

More Nursing Home Residents going home

Forty-three states have received federal funding to help transfer Medicaid beneficiaries from nursing homes to their communities, a new analysis finds.
The Money Follows the Person demonstration program, which was started five years ago and was expanded under the Affordable Care Act, had successfully transferred a total of 17,000 nursing home residents back into their communities as of Aug. 11, 2011, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

More Medicaid beneficiaries are undergoing nursing home-to-community transfers, report finds - McKnight's Long Term Care News

Nursing Home Population to Expand

According to an article in hivehealthmedia.com,
there are 3.8 million nursing home residents over the age of 65 , and the senior citizen population will increase  to over 72 million by 2030.

This means nursing homes will see over 5 million patients in 2020 and 6.6 million in 2030. With medical advances it is likely  that nursing home populations will be bigger.

http://www.hivehealthmedia.com/nursing-home-abuse-grow-future/

The Nursing Home Exodus

When Edwin Murphy was 91 he was transferred to a local nursing home for rehab and he developed pressure ulcers on both hips. He wanted to go home . Unlike some nursing home residents, he still had a home.
He didn't feel he could enjoy life being "institutionalized.” Moving disabled people out of nursing homes back into the community has become a focus for Medicaid, which now is shifting its priorities to spending more long-term care dollars on community services and less on institutions such as nursing homes.
To that end, every person admitted to a nursing home now is asked The Question: “Do you want to talk to someone about the possibility of returning to the community?” The Question is posed quarterly thereafter.

The Nursing Home Exodus, Part 2 - NYTimes.com