A recent report by the Health and Human Services inspector general’s office warns that it has found that 1 in 4 cases of sexual assault and abuse in America’s nursing homes is going unreported to police. Although the report is preliminary, it was based on a large sampling of cases in 33 states. Having handled these cases for over twenty years, consider me not surprised.

I have written here before about just how bad the treatment is of our nation’s nursing home residents. It is routine that the nursing aides – those that in reality are providing 99% of the care – are grossly undertrained, underpaid, and understaffed. It contributes to their cheating and lying on the care that is being given, and many in management and ownership tacitly agree to look the other way as the neglect and abuse runs rampant.

Add to the underlying problem of substandard care the fact that states such as Texas and Oklahoma have turned down federal monies and have cut Medicaid, and these findings cannot be shocking to anyone in the business. Although there are many good people who are in the business to help care for our ever-growing nursing home population, there does exist a large number of predators and offenders who have access daily to the elderly. We have approximately 1.4 million residents of nursing homes, and their neglect and abuse cannot be tolerated if we are to consider ourselves civilized and caring, and they should not be collateral damage to those like the leadership in Texas who play politics with federal aid.