Sexual Abuse Can Occur at the Hands of Other Nursing Home Residents

If you have a loved one in a nursing home, or if you are a patient in a nursing home yourself, you may have done your homework to ensure you or a family member was placed in a facility that has good reviews and rankings.

When doing your research, you might have come across facilities that received poor ratings due to neglect, bad medical care, or incidents of physical and sexual abuse. When you hear about these acts of abuse, you might automatically assume the abusers were staff members. While this is often the case in incidents of poor medical care and neglect, physical and sexual abuse can actually occur at the hands of other nursing home residents.

In fact, a recent study by Cornell University uncovers evidence of a problem between residents. According to the study, one in five nursing home residents has been involved in an aggressive encounter with other residents. The researchers from Cornell University studied 2,000 residents for six months and found the following:

• 16% of nursing home residents were verbally abused by other residents (i.e., yelling, cursing, screaming)
• 6% of nursing home residents were physically abused by other residents (i.e. hitting, kicking, biting)
• 1% of nursing home residents were sexually abused by other residents (i.e. unwanted sexual favors, unwanted touching, exposure of genitals)

Although other residents might be responsible for such horrible acts, the nursing home where these act took place are also responsible. When abuse occurs on the grounds of a nursing home, that nursing home can be liable for a victim’s damages because it can be argued that the nursing home failed to exercise reasonable care in ensuring their residents’ safety.

This means that anyone who has been physically or sexually abused by another resident at a nursing home in Florida has grounds to bring a lawsuit against the nursing home facility. When a nursing home doesn’t have enough staff, proper security, or procedures in place to prevent acts of elder abuse, it should be held accountable.

If you or your loved one suffered any type of abuse, please call the Law Offices of David Benenfeld at 866-9 HELP NOW or 866-943-5766 to speak with an experienced South Florida nursing home abuse lawyer in a free consultation today.