Assaults left residents anxious

BY MELISSA DOMSIC
mdomsic@record-eagle.com

March 31, 2009 07:48 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- Repeated physical and sexual assaults between residents at Tendercare Health Center-Birchwood caused more than just physical pain.

Officials from the Michigan Department of Community Health inspected Birchwood in July 2007 and discovered several incidents of resident-on-resident abuse and harassment dating to 2006.

Residents were left "persistently feeling anxious, fearful, helpless, humiliated, devalued, a need to be constantly vigilant, that the facility did not care about them, that their safety was compromised, and that staff were blaming them for the abuse," state inspectors reported.

Birchwood employees didn't do enough to prevent incessant exploitation of the residents under their care, said Alice Turner, director of nursing home monitoring for the Department of Community Health.

"They may stop it for one resident, and then the abuser just takes someone else," she said. "I think that's how they missed some of it. They weren't looking at the big picture."

Attackers often targeted vulnerable residents who couldn't fend for themselves.

In one case, a male resident harassed a 58-year-old female resident with Down syndrome and dementia. The facility's social worker was aware of the problem and told the woman to stay away from the man.

That same woman later was found with suspicious bruises on her breast and thighs, but it was never investigated as possible abuse or reported to the police.

A man also assaulted a woman with multiple sclerosis, said Ellen Miller, a former Birchwood resident.

The woman, who couldn't speak and was immobile except her wrists, was in the dining room when the man came and put his hand up her blouse, said Miller.

"She couldn't do anything; she couldn't scream or holler or anything," Miller said. "She practically had no communication."

The report detailed a similar incident against a woman with MS. A nurse removed the man and notified the social worker, according to the report. About a week later, the woman was found sleeping in her wheelchair and woke up screaming on three occasions.