Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

The 75-year-old woman with diabetes and dementia who is recovering at the state-run Emily P. Bissell Hospital, a skilled nursing facility in Delaware, after fracturing her leg after a fall in January 2007, told her visiting nieces that staff members were mean to her. Those family members also noted signs of neglect in personal hygiene of their ailing aunt, and secretly installed a hidden video surveillance camera to keep watch on their aunt, according to Delaware Online. The $600 motion-sensitive video camera showed staff yelling and slapping the hands and face of the bedridden aunt while she pleaded for help.

The family members raised concerns of their aunt’s welfare, and questioned the choices of a third niece, who had power of attorney over the aunt. It was she who placed the elderly woman at Bissell Hospital.

After communicating by e-mail with the hospital, the two nieces in late July released the DVD evidence to the Delaware Division of Long Term Care Resident Protection. The agency inspects the 46 skilled nursing homes and four intermediate-care facilities and oversees licensing, conducts criminal background checks, enforces regulations and monitors the welfare of nursing-home patients.

Shortly thereafter, all three nieces were banned from the facility until mediation of a public guardian. The guardian requested the elderly woman be moved to another facility. The move was approved and is planned to take place in January.

The investigation resulted in the firing of three employees and the suspension without pay of two others. Four of the five employees also have been placed on the state’s Adult Abuse Registry, a list of caregivers who have been accused of abuse. Three of those employees are appealing to be removed from that list. There are 246 people on that list and 25 are pending appeal.

The Delaware Attorney General’s Office did not say why it will not prosecute the caregivers in this case.

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